


Bellarke in a Bunker

by PenguinofProse



Series: Bellarke in a Bunker (and beyond) [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 20:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 77,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: In which Bellamy stays behind with Clarke at the end of S4 and they take on the challenges of five years of radiation together. Meanwhile, Spacekru have to cope with leaving their friends behind. Cross posted from FFN, because I only recently got an AO3 account.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to an alternative ending to season four!

Bellamy hears the rocket take off behind him and the ceiling of the bunker close behind it. He fights down the rising urge to panic. The choice is made, he tells himself. _Alea iacta est_. He wonders, briefly, if this is how Caesar felt when he realised there was no going back. This odd mixture of fizzing excitement, terror, and absolute confidence that he has made the right decision. Except, he muses to himself, Caesar had a choice. And Bellamy Blake didn't have a choice, not really. Because no way was he leaving Clarke Griffin to face this alone.

As he walks away from the space where the rocket used to be, he runs through his plan in an attempt to keep calm. He has to admit, it doesn't really work. The plan seemed better, somehow, when it was being formed in snatches in between getting Monty back and loading the rocket. It seemed more like a plan that could keep two people alive and less like a vague assortment of hopes and dreams.

Stage one: Wait for Clarke to get back from sending the signal up to the Ring. By Raven's reckoning she has about 10 minutes from now. Close the door after her. Simple, as long as she makes it back in time. Hopefully avoid death by radiation.

Stage two: Hang out in this bunker until the death wave has passed. Some time during those couple of months, get Clarke to make him a nightblood. Hopefully avoid death by angry-short-blonde-woman-who-can't-believe-he-stayed-behind-for-her.

Stage three: Go find some nice survivable bit of Earth. Survive there. Hopefully avoid death by starvation and death by radiation and death by Other Unforeseen Hazard.

Yeah, he's had better plans. This one seems to involve quite a lot of potential deaths to avoid. But, on the plus side, it involves Clarke, and that already makes it a whole lot better than the plan where he was the man on the inside of Mount Weather, or the plan where he let Pike brainwash him into slaughtering a camp full of allies. With that thought, a half smile on his lips, he walks purposefully towards the doors of the bunker. Checking the inner door is closed against the radiation, he opens the outer door and gets on with waiting for Clarke.

With about five minutes to go, he's getting somewhat nervous. Smoke rises in the distance – although not as distant as he would prefer – and threatens to block out the weak sunlight. Still, he reminds himself, Clarke always comes through. Surviving against impossible odds is what she does best. It has to be.

A couple of minutes later, and he doesn't need to check the clock to know that she's nearly out of time. The world is bathed in a sickening orange glow, and Bellamy is praying to every deity he can think of to let her live. He's half way through the travellers' blessing for the fifth time when she comes literally sprinting for her life over the fast-melting snow. The moment he sees her, running towards him, he knows in his heart that she is safe because no way is Clarke Griffin going to let a measly nuclear apocalypse stop her from living her best life when she's this close to safety.

…...

Clarke is confused, to say the least, when she wakes up on a soft mattress, wrapped in soft bedclothes, in a soft pastel-painted bedroom. She hasn't slept this well since she was a small child on the Ark who knew nothing of the hard life of the ground or the harsh force of the elements or the hard decisions of adulthood. She's even more surprised when she turns her head a few degrees to the right and sees Bellamy Blake, whom she's pretty sure she remembers instructing to get on a rocket to fly to space in the recent past, with that expression on his face that is almost a smile.

"Hello, Princess. Nice of you to join me."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Watching over you." He says it like it's the most natural thing in the world.

"Where the hell is here anyway?"

"Dammit, I knew that stage two was going to be the tricky one." He grins at her.

"Stage two? Stage two of what, exactly?"

"Stage two of the plan" he says, like that explains everything, and then he realises from the look on her face that actually it explains nothing so then he bites his lip and wonders where to begin.

"Would you mind explaining to me, please, what the plan is and also where I am?" she asks with infinite patience and control.

"You're in one of the bedrooms at Becca's bunker. You got a bit irradiated on your way back from the mast but you seem fine now. Nightblood's good stuff, you see. The plan is admittedly not a very good one," he confesses "but it was the best I had at the time. It's a plan for how you and me are going to survive Praimfaya. You see, step one was for you to get back into the bunker safe and sound, which you did, so well done." She thinks that, perhaps, he might be in danger of rambling. "Step two was for us to chill here for a while until the death wave has cooled down a bit. We've got a good couple of months of rations and I found a lot of books, so we won't be bored." Yep, she decides, definitely rambling. "Of course, some time while we're here it would be really useful if you could make me a nightblood so I don't die when we attempt stage three of the plan, which is, unsurprisingly, to leave the bunker and attempt to survive for the next five years. So, yes, plan." He finishes with something of a flustered air, as if expecting her to pounce immediately on everything that is wrong with this desperate, incoherent, non-plan of a plan.

She decides instead to offer him a soft smile. "To be honest, Bellamy, that sounds like the best plan we're going to get."

"Yeah, I reckoned it only ranked about number three on the list of my all-time worst plans." He grins, looking relieved that at least they're both alive for now.

"I do have one quite important question though. What happened to the bit where you were all supposed to be on a rocket to the Ring?"

"The others went. I stayed."

"Why?"

"I think you know the answer to that, Princess."

........

Raven is thoroughly convinced that she will never, ever, forgive Bellamy Blake for making her leave him to die. She cannot stop reliving that last conversation, hearing his voice running through her head.

_"Bellamy, I'm sorry, but we have to go now." _

_"Yes, of course, you guys should go." _

_"What? What do you mean?" _

_"I'm staying. You guys should go. No time to argue – get on with it." _

_"Bellamy, you can't. You're not thinking straight, come on, get into the ship." _

_"I'm thinking perfectly straight, Raven. My mind is made up. It's time for the rest of you to go now." _

No one had expected John Murphy to be the one to understand.

_"Raven, he needs to do this. Look at him, he's not moving any time soon. We need to go. May we meet again, Bellamy. I hope she gets back to you." _

_"May we meet again." _

Here comes John Murphy again, walking into the Earth Monitoring Station, hand in hand with Emori.

"I'm sorry, Raven. I know you're not going to forgive me for backing him up back there but... he needed to do that, I think."

"When did you get so insightful, Murphy?" she bites back.

"When I fell in love. He looked how I felt when they had Emori on that table in the lab." Raven wasn't expecting that. Neither was Emori, judging by the look on her face as she stares at him with what can only be described using words like sickening and devotion.

"Coming up here without her would have broken him anyway. You know that. We all do. At least this way they have some hope of finding a solution together or – or at least – saying goodbye." There are tears in Raven's eyes as she nods her head and turns back to the computer screen.

.......

The next time Clarke drifts into consciousness, Bellamy is too engrossed in his book to notice. Drowsily, she allows her eyes to settle on him for a moment, taking in the rapt concentration in his gaze, the slight creasing at the corners of his mouth, the soft curve of his cheek as he smiles gently at something. She likes to think he's smiling because he's with her, but she knows that, at this moment in time, the book is a more likely explanation.

"Good book?" She asks, her voice somewhat croaky from disuse. His eyes dart to hers immediately, and in that moment she knows that he has been waiting to hear her speak for quite some time.

"Yeah, decent. I mean, it's only one of the founding works of Earth literature." He holds the book out so that she can see the word _Odyssey_ printed on the front. "And I'm just at the bit where this teenage boy tells his mum to shut up and go to her room and get on with doing something ladylike, which is pretty hysterical once you've met literally anyone in Trikru. I mean, can you imagine Indra being sent to her room to do something ladylike?" Clarke giggles at that.

"Maybe this is the opportunity I have been waiting for all these years, a chance to learn about the wonders of Earth literature." There is a heavy dose of sarcasm in her voice, and it doesn't go unnoticed.

"You may mock, philistine, but Earth culture is fascinating. Particularly the Classical stuff. You know they believed in a goddess who was born out of her dad's forehead?"

"OK, that does actually sound like a pretty cool story."

Bellamy looks suddenly shy. "I could tell it to you if you like?"

He won't quite meet her eye, and somehow she knows that this offer is different from all the other offers he has ever made her. This is not a favour or an exchange or him doing the right thing. An offer of storytelling is an offer of something that is part of himself, kept close to his heart. Something that used to belong to his mother and his sister. Something that belongs only to people he loves.

She smiles widely, and she knows that her heart is in her eyes as she whispers "I'd like that."

"Once upon a time – because, after all, that is how every good bedtime story starts – there was a god called Zeus. Now, to be honest, he was a bit of a womaniser, and also deeply insecure about a wide range of issues."

Somewhere along the line he has taken her hand, and she's not really sure when, but she feels no inclination to reclaim it.

"One of the women he decided to womanise was called Metis."

She would like to stay awake, really she would, but she's still not feeling at all well and anyway she feels so warm and safe and treasured as his voice weaves the story around her. Perhaps she should ask him to tell the story another day?

"And one of the things he felt particularly panicky about was this prophecy – because there were a lot of prophecies doing the rounds in those days – that any children Metis had would be wiser than their father. And, you see, this was a bad thing, because Zeus..."

After all, she reasons, her last coherent thought as sleep rises up to claim her, they have all the time in the world.

.......

Bellamy is not surprised that she falls asleep. A couple of minutes later he allows his sentence to trail away into nothing and wonders what to do now. He needs to work out that computer simulation so that he can see which areas of land might escape the worst of the radiation. They will, after all, need somewhere to live once the death wave has passed and Clarke has made him a nightblood. That's another rather important project he could get started on, actually, he reasons – researching bone marrow transplants. And, to be honest, he could also do with organising their rations a bit. Or washing some underpants. Or making up one of the beds for himself. At the very least, he could pick up his book again and, if nothing else, get some reading done. But, of course, he does none of these things, because rubbing his thumb over Clarke's hand (when did he take her hand?) and keeping an eye on her while she rests is infinitely more interesting and important.

He won't let anything happen to her on his watch.


	2. Chapter two

Monty knows that Jasper made his choice. He knows that Clarke made her choice too, and Bellamy made his. But at this moment in time he wishes his friends had a little more respect for what he would choose.

Because he would choose to keep them with him, safe, alive. Whole.

Of course, he realises, they had their reasons. Clarke was saving them. Bellamy thought he was saving Clarke. And Jasper thought he was beyond saving. But that doesn't make it any easier to mourn them.

As he gazes down on the burning Earth he knows he has to find a way to move on from this. He has to find something to build hope and joy and happiness on, otherwise their deaths will have been in vain, and that is not acceptable. He feels a hand take his, and knows that Harper will be content to simply be there for him for as long as he needs her. She is his rock, and just for a moment she is able to pull him out of his grief.

And in that moment, he thinks that, maybe, he can begin to understand why Bellamy stayed in that bunker.

…...

As Bellamy jolts awake, the nagging pain in his neck tells him that he has been asleep in this awkward position for quite some time. He raises his head, and realises that he was woken by Clarke softly saying his name. The way she says it, laced with concern for him, when she's the one who has been ill, makes his heart jump for joy just a little.

"Morning, princess."

"Morning." She's smiling widely at him, and looking more alive than she has since she got back to the bunker. "Do you think I might be allowed to get up and leave this bed today? I promise I'm feeling quite a lot better now."

"You're the doctor. Let's be honest, I had no idea how to deal with radiation poisoning. I just figured you should sleep and let the nightblood do its thing." Keeping his tone flippant seems to require quite a lot of effort. He hopes she doesn't notice, but if he's being honest he knows her better than that.

"Well then, I deem myself fit enough to go on a small adventure."

"OK, but only a very small one. You were really sick. I don't want you to have a relapse or something." He is aware that all trace of flippancy has now fled, but he needs her to look after herself.

"But we have things to do. Stage two, remember, you said? Research to do, plans to make. We should-"

"Clarke," his voice is firm, and cuts off her rambling, "you were very ill. We have months to research and plan. You are not doing anything challenging today." She has to understand that he is serious about this. He can't lose her, not now.

"OK." She sounds resigned. "Very small adventures only."

…...

Clarke finds Bellamy's newfound tendency to hover over her constantly endearing.

Or, at least, that's what she tells herself, because that seems better than admitting that it has the potential to become absolutely infuriating. He stands outside the door as she gets dressed, asking her every few seconds whether she's strong enough to be doing this or whether she has found everything she needs or whether she requires help.

In the back of her mind, she's uncomfortably aware that Bellamy has more experience in helping women to remove clothes than putting them back on again.

By the time she's done, she is forced to concede to herself that she is surprisingly tired and that some help might have been a good idea. But there's no way Bellamy is finding that out. He offers his arm as she opens the door and she takes it easily, leaning into his warmth and letting him take some of the weight of a body which currently feels too heavy for its own legs.

"So, where to, o master of very small adventures?"

"I wondered if you wanted to sit in one of the living rooms and watch a movie? That seems not too exhausting."

"That sounds like an excellent plan. I seem to remember that Murphy shot the TV in the biggest lounge, but I think there's another. It does seem a bit palatial for a nuclear bunker."

"They knew a princess would be coming to stay, so they had to make it palatial."

"Funny. Really."

"Hey, you're stuck with me for the next five years. The least you could do is laugh at my jokes."

…...

They walk down the corridor arm in arm, and Bellamy reflects on the fact that it was completely the right decision to say. Clarke is much recovered and they have the next five years ahead of them to face everything an irradiated planet can throw at them. Together.

As they arrive at the living room and make their way towards the sofa, he finds himself considering their seating arrangements. Clarke, on the other hand, does not appear to consider – she plops onto the sofa and pulls him down next to her.

"Feels weird to be having movie night on Earth, in the middle of another apocalypse no less. I haven't had a movie night since the Ark."

"Yeah, you're right there. We used to have movie nights quite a lot to try to entertain Octavia." Of course, he goes quiet at the mention of his sister and, of course, Clarke recognises exactly why. She squeezes his hand in reassurance.

"She'll be OK. I'm sure of it. That bunker survived once and it will survive again. Once the death wave has passed we'll see about getting in touch with them."

"At least now you're awake I've only got to worry about one of you." He tries to smile but is not altogether successful.

He lets silence hang in the air for a moment, before pressing on with the task at hand.

"So, what are we watching?" He asks with only a little forced brightness.

"I don't mind. You choose."

He begins scrolling through the options the TV screen offers him. It's not long before something catches his eye and he can't stop himself from blurting out "Troy?!"

"I should have known." Her voice contains equal parts exasperation and affection. "Troy it is. Have you seen it before?"

"No, is it good? It must be good, if it's about Troy. The Trojan war is literally the greatest story ever told." He's aware that he's sounding somewhat obsessed, but it seems a little late to worry about Clarke thinking he's some kind of nerd.

"Are you going to ruin it by telling me every time they get something wrong?"

"Of course not. I have some self control."

"Good"

With that, she curls her legs up next to her and leans into his side. His arm reaches around her shoulders as if it is the most natural thing in the world – and maybe that's because it is.

…...

They are seven minutes in when Bellamy breaks his word.

She has felt him growing increasingly tense with the effort it takes to repress his scorn for the movie so she is hardly surprised when he cracks and presses pause.

"This is completely unacceptable! How could they be so wrong? Everyone knows that Patroclus is the elder!"

Clarke didn't know that, actually, but this does not seem like a good moment to contradict Bellamy. Instead, she draws what she hopes are soothing circles on his thigh. It doesn't work.

"This completely betrays the original story line. I can't watch this. Why would anyone watch this?!"

"I believe that it was a very popular film in the early twenty first century," she states calmly, lifting her head slightly from his shoulder to meet his eye, "and that its popularity was in large part due to the fact that the actor playing Achilles was considered to be very good looking."

"Oh." He doesn't seem quite sure how to respond. He gazes at the frozen screen in silence for a moment as she relaxes back into his shoulder. "I suppose he is aesthetically pleasing, in a sort of classically blond kind of way." He doesn't sound pleased about this.

"Hmm. Personally, I've always found dark-haired and unconventional to be more my type."

There is a moment in which she would swear she can feel him blushing, before he tightens his arm around her just a little.

"Maybe we'll watch the rest of it after all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter three

Troy lumbers onwards, as such cinematic epics are wont to do. For the most part Bellamy manages to keep his scorn in check, aided by the reassuring weight of Clarke's head on his shoulder. They're in the middle of a particularly grandiose battle scene, which he can't help but notice completely contradicts Homer's description of individual warriors fighting in hand-to-hand combat, when she uncurls herself from his side. He immediately feels bereft of her warmth.

"Where do you think you're going?" The hurt and concern simmering in his chest combine to make him sound more brusque than he intends.

Meanwhile, on screen, the Greeks and the Trojans continue to fight it out. An improbably muscular blond bloke is felled by an arrow to the left pec and falls gracelessly to the ground, the passing of his life going tragically unmarked by his audience.

"I just wanted some water." He curses his own stupidity. Of course she wants water. How did he not offer her water? Obviously sick people need water. He hits pause and jumps to his feet.

"I'm so sorry. I should have thought of that. I'm not doing a very good job of looking after you. Do you want something to eat, too?" She places a restraining hand on his arm and looks up at him, meeting his eyes with a smile.

"You've looked after me perfectly. Thank you. Really. You've been great. Now let me come with you to get some water." He melts slightly at the genuine gratitude in her tone, and leads the way to the kitchen.

…...

For a long time, Emori reflects, the only thing that really mattered to her was her own survival. And somehow, somewhere along the line, the survival of a certain John Murphy came to be essential to her happiness as well. Now that she comes to think of it, she could probably have seen that one coming from the moment they first met in that dessert, and he wasn't repulsed by her hand in the slightest, and even looked at her like she was at least a little bit beautiful. So really, all things considered, she seems to have got the best deal out of any of them on the Ring. She's fine, John's fine, all should be fine, surely.

But however hard she tries to push Clarke's sacrifice to the back of her mind, and file it under "things not worth dwelling on", she never quite manages it. And she doesn't even bother to try to forget what Bellamy did, because frankly, no one could. She has to admit that all this self sacrifice is making her feel a little bit guilty. No, maybe guilt isn't quite it. It's making her feel like she should be doing more, doing better.

Without any clear goal in mind, she heads towards the Earth monitoring station, where she knows she will find Raven. Because, if there's one thing she's learnt since she met these arkers, it's that Raven can fix anything. So, surely, she will be able to fix Emori's current despondency too.

As she enters the room, Raven jumps a little and tries to pretend that she wasn't gazing fruitlessly out of the window. There's something that looks complicated and technical and seems to involve a large number of wires lying on the table in front of her, but she's not fooling anyone. Apart from anything else, even Emori knows that an engineer should be holding tools, not gazing down at a set of them still perfectly arranged in their case.

"Hi, Raven?" She's rather nervous, it would appear, based on the involuntary rise in pitch in her voice. She's not sure she's ever really had an actual conversation with the intimidatingly intelligent engineer before.

"Emori. What can I do for you?"

"That's what I wanted to ask, actually. I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help?"

"To help? With what?" This is not going quite to plan. Raven is looking at her like she's the mangled remains of a slug's intestines stuck to the bottom of her shoe. And, if she's being honest with herself, she feels a little like the mangled remains of a slug's intestines stuck on the bottom of Raven's shoe. She's not really sure how any skill she could offer could possibly be of any use to a woman as terrifyingly brilliant as Raven. It's not like theft if a particularly useful talent round here.

"I... I don't know, really. I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I just wanted to be helpful." She feels her voice break slightly on the last word, and turns away towards the door.

"Do you know how to splice a wire?" She's surprised to hear Raven's voice. She didn't think she had anything further to say to her.

"No. Sorry. Like I said, I don't know what I was thinking." Raven is looking at her appraisingly, and she begins to feel very slightly less slug-like.

"Well," Raven begins, brisk and businesslike as ever, "everyone has to start somewhere."

…...

"I promise you can choose the film next time." Bellamy whispers into Clarke's hair, just as Troy is catching fire improbably swiftly and Unidentifiable Characters in Period Costume are running across the shot in various states of panic.

"Next time? Is this going to become a regular fixture?" He doesn't think he's misinterpreting the tone of her voice when he decides that she wants the answer to be yes as much as he does.

"I like to think so. While we're stuck here, we may as well make the most of the facilities. I was thinking we could try to start a pattern of working on Stage Two during the day and doing something like this in the evening?"

"Sounds like a plan. It's hard to believe the world is burning out there. This is genuinely the most relaxed I've been since we got to this ridiculous planet." He squeezes her a little tighter at that.

"Me too." They watch in contemplative silence for the last couple of minutes, and he thinks she might be beginning to drift into sleep.

As the credits roll, he turns off the TV and breathes a sigh out into her hair.

"Come on, Princess." He whispers. "Time for you to go to bed." She stretches out a little.

"You're probably right there. Walk me up the stairs? I'm pretty tired."

"I guessed." He can't resist smirking at her, just a little, as they make their way quietly towards her room.

"So, to clarify, you are not allowed to sit up next to my bed all night tonight." He's surprised at the vehemence in her voice. "There are many beds in this absurd bunker, and it's important that you get a good night's sleep too. We've got Stage Two to get on with tomorrow, so you need to be on top form." He glows a little at the thought that she's looking after him just as much as he's worrying about her.

"If you insist. I'll be right next door, though. You shout if you need anything. Or want anything, even."

"I will, I promise." They are at her door, and he's suddenly not quite sure how they say goodnight now. It's not a situation they've been in before, and they don't seem to have written the rules yet.

She solves the problem by engulfing him in a hug, and it only takes him a moment to catch up and reciprocate.

"Thank you. For everything. For being here for me." She whispers somewhere into his chest.

"I wouldn't be anywhere else."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter four

Clarke drifts into wakefulness to the sound of music. It is muffled, like it's coming from the other side of a couple of closed doors, but she can make out the unmistakable melody of an old Earth classic. As she becomes more alert, she realises that it's not just a recording - she can hear a certain someone singing along. With a bound that belies her recent illness, she jumps from the bed and dashes through the door of her bedroom. Pausing, briefly, she decides that pyjamas are perfectly good enough clothing for the breakfast she can smell cooking. With that decision made, she follows her nose towards the food and her ears towards the impromptu karaoke session. Deciding that a certain amount of surprise will enhance the effect, she bursts through the kitchen door and joins in.

"Don't stop me noooooowwww!" The old song had been a family favourite in their household, years ago, before her father was floated.

"I'm having such a good time!" Bellamy sees her, grins, and rises in volume to match her singing.

"I'm having a ba-aaall!"

"Don't stop me noooooowwww!" Bellamy is using his wooden spoon as a microphone. She can top this, she thinks, and starts dancing with enthusiasm.

"If you wanna have a good time, just give me a ca-all!"

"Don't stop me now..." By the time the song fades out, both of them are doubled over with laughter.

"Would you care to explain the slightly unconventional alarm clock?" She asks him, one eyebrow cocked, a broad smile splitting her face. He looks somewhat sheepish but rather too entertained.

"I just thought I'd put on some music while I made breakfast. Which was a sensible choice, really, because you need breakfast, because you should eat, because you were sick. And I chose slightly tamer music, originally, but it just kept playing and one song led to another, you know how it is..."

"I do, of course. I know exactly how it is, making breakfast with musical accompaniment in a nuclear bunker." She can't keep a straight face. No one could.

"I wasn't trying to be... irreverent. Or insensitive." His smile sits rather more heavily on his face now. "I just... I guess I spent a lot of time worrying when you were ill and missing the others and I just thought that, you know, we should get on with having breakfast and singing and planning Stage Two and living a little." She reaches a hand towards where he still holds the microphone wooden spoon, and wraps her fingers around his.

"You thought absolutely right, you wonderful man. Now tell me what's for breakfast."

…...

Bellamy thinks this is the best ration pack porridge he's ever made. This is largely because he's never made ration pack porridge before, but no one's counting. It's rather distressed-looking and grey and he's pretty sure it would be revolting even if a seasoned chef made it, but it's edible and they have enough of it for a good few weeks. And Clarke's eating it and keeping it down so far, which is thoroughly excellent news. She's complained once or twice or, to be fair, maybe three times that it tastes like pureed sorrow but she said it with such a big smile on her face that he can't take her too seriously.

They linger over their meal, and they linger over the washing up, and then they linger over checking the kitchen cupboards and working out how many weeks they can eat here for before they need to explore the world beyond this bunker. But, eventually, there is no more lingering to be done and they have to admit that it is time to get dressed for the day and move on to the question of where the hell they are going to start with Stage Two.

"I think we need to find a place to live, first. Then we can plan where we're going, and work out how long it will take us to get there. That, combined with the amount of food we've got in storage, will allow us to timeline the whole plan accurately." Bellamy knows his words make sense, so he is unprepared for her complete disagreement.

"Absolutely not." She is vehement in her denial. "Our priority has to be nightblood. We need to sort that out before we go any further. I have to know that you're going to be OK out there. You have to be protected as soon as possible."

"Clarke, be reasonable. Nothing's going to happen to me in here. We need a workable plan, with the logistics fully organised. Then we worry about the nightblood. That way, even if something else goes wrong, you survive." He knows that his argument is sound, that he has presented it logically, but he can see her anger rising.

"No, Bellamy. No." She's properly furious here, and he's not entirely sure where he went wrong. Not half an hour ago they were dancing in the kitchen. "You don't get to sacrifice yourself again, Bellamy. I didn't ask you to stay. I didn't ask for any of this. You are supposed to be safe in space right now. You shouldn't be here." There are tears on her cheeks, and she brushes them away angrily. He's not really sure what he's supposed to do in this moment, how he's supposed to make it all better. He's quite preoccupied with fighting the hurt he feels at her words. He thought that the fact he wasn't supposed to be here didn't mean that she didn't want him here, but now he's not so sure. The thought simmers in his chest until he bursts out with a reply that he knows won't make it better at all.

"Well I'm sorry, Clarke." He says, hurt making his sarcasm bite. "I'm sorry for staying. I'm sorry for caring about you. I'm sorry for thinking, just for a moment, that you might be happy to have me here with you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get the hell on with finding somewhere you might be able to survive in two months' time." He stamps his feet as he makes his way towards the computer that will help him model the radiation, aware that he is behaving like a small child, but convinced, in that moment, that doing so makes him no worse than her.

…...

It is seven minutes and thirty-two seconds from the moment he sits down at the computer to the moment when Clarke appears by his shoulder. He knows this, because he has been watching the clock, trying to reassure himself that it hasn't been all day, it just feels like it.

He doesn't get up from his seat, still simmering somewhat because he was only trying to help and care and it doesn't seem right that he should get yelled at for that. Hesitantly, she places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes slightly.

"I'm sorry." She doesn't sound like Clarke. She sounds like someone altogether more shy and he doesn't like it. "I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on you. I'm just upset, and anxious, because you're always saving me and I'm really scared that this time, I might not be able to do what I have to do to save you."

"Clarke." He can't meet her eyes, not yet, so he keeps his gaze fixed on the screen as he reaches up to cover her hand with his, much like she had done in the kitchen so recently when he'd been holding that stupid wooden spoon. "I trust you. You will be able to do it, and I will help you as much as I can. Because that's what we do. We trust each other, and we face our challenges together. But please, never say again that I shouldn't be here or that you wish I hadn't stayed. I'm telling you, I'm exactly where I should be."

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I should never have said that. You chose to stay, and I respect your choice, and I'm genuinely so glad you're by my side even if I hate myself a fair bit for feeling that way."

"Thank you." He turns towards her now, and looks up into her face. "Now, what do you say we make our plan based on logic rather than guilt? How about we get back on with making the most of the situation rather than dwelling on everything there is to be afraid of?"

"I am afraid, though." She admits in a small voice, and his heart breaks to see this fearless woman reduced to this.

"I know, me too. But we don't have to let fear rule our lives for the next five years. Let's start making a plan. And later, when we've done some planning, let's eat porridge and sing at the top of our voices and watch a terrible movie."

Her smile is weak, but it's there, breaking free.

"That sounds like a plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter five

Clarke is enormously grateful for the all-singing, all-dancing supercomputer that Becca left behind. She is even more grateful that, unlike most of the tech she remembers her dad working with on the Ark, it is entirely user-friendly. Bellamy is merrily typing away, telling the machine to model the level of destruction Praimfaiya will leave behind, and she really has nothing more to do than sit and watch.

"So what are we looking for in a habitable future home?" She asks, trying to convince herself she is contributing something to this team, as she picks up a notepad and pencil for something to do. She knows that he knows exactly what they're looking for, but she likes to feel useful.

"Plants and animals would be a good start, I figure. It'd be nice not to starve to death." Bellamy knows her question is stupid, but she's pleased to see that he's humouring her anyway.

"Agreed."

"Fresh water tends to be useful, I hear." OK, the sarcasm is growing in his voice now.

"Actually," she begins, determined to prove that this is worth discussing, "that's not entirely necessary. We could distill sea water or even water contaminated by the black rain if need be, there are a couple of drinking water stills in the rations cupboard."

"What would I do without you?" Her heart warms at the affection in his voice.

"Have fewer dance parties while cooking breakfast?"

"Speaking of which," he swings round on his desk chair, visibly taking too much juvenile joy in the action, and after a couple of seconds stops spinning to face her, "shall we go and check out the options for, you know, recreational activities? This programme should run for an hour or so now."

"Sounds like a plan. I hope there's a chess board."

"I seriously hope there's not. I have no intention of losing daily at chess for the next five years." He's smiling so widely that she can't help but notice that it's the most relaxed she's seen him in the months they've known one another. It doesn't seem quite right, that he's feeling that way in the middle of Praimfaiya when she's no idea how to make him a night blood so he can be resistant to the radiation. All the same, she has to admit that it's the safest she's felt in quite some time too. At least the risk of death isn't imminent here, and they can procrastinate over the danger for the couple of months that the rations last.

"I'll make you a deal – we get to watch one terrible movie loosely based on the classical world for every game of chess you lose?" The smile on her face grows to match his.

"It's a deal."

…...

Their treasure hunt has been pretty successful, Bellamy likes to think. They've found a pack of cards that's only missing the three of clubs, and they've got a marker pen so they sacrifice a joker and call it a success. They've found a couple of jigsaws, one of some old Earth foodstuff called "baked beans", which he can't help thinking is a stupid subject for a jigsaw because obviously these dratted things all look the same. He'd already glanced over the bookshelves, but on further investigation there's a good haul here, including some things he's never even heard of. He's particularly looking forward to what looks to be the entire works of Ovid, which were largely left behind on the exodus to the Ark and he's always wished he could read. Of course, there are also more films than they could watch in a lifetime and all the music they could ever want, at the push of a button.

The computer's treasure hunt has gone pretty well too, all things considered, and they spend the greater part of the day poring over the various maps it has spat out, trying to work out the combination of projected radiation levels and terrain to find a future home. It's a serious task and they take it seriously, but that doesn't mean that the day is without moments of humour, or opportunities to smirk at one another's foolishness. By the end of the afternoon, they're onto some good leads. The distribution of nuclear power plants over the landmass that used to be North America was not very even, so there are certainly places that look less death-inducing than others. He gets very excited when he realises there's a mountain range not too far from the place they used to call home which is projected to defend some of the land in its shadow from the death wave. Of course Clarke, always better at using her head, reminds him that living in the foothills of an enormous mountain range doesn't sound like an option that will leave them with much to eat, so they keep looking. In the end, they identify a couple of deep valleys just on the edge of this mountain range that look like they might be promising, and agree to come back to the problem in the morning. They are both holding each other to the agreement that evenings are for relaxing and enjoying each other's company.

They are just packing up for the evening when Bellamy broaches a topic which he's been considering since they found themselves here.

"So I'm thinking of doing a little bit of training before supper, a few pressups or something, you know? Because I'm thinking that we're going to be here for a while but when we get back outside we're going to need to be strong enough for whatever challenges are out there."

"By "doing a few pressups", I take it you mean some nausea-inducingly impossible Ark guard workout that us mere mortals can scarcely dream of attempting?" He has to grin at that, and wonders what it was that he did in a past life to deserve this. Because if he has to find himself stuck in a metal box under the ground while the world burns, at least he's stuck here with her, the one person on this planet who understands him perfectly.

"Pretty much, yeah. And... don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you should join me. Not because you're not thoroughly capable, but because you're still recovering from radiation sickness and I'm pretty sure that's not compatible with doing hundreds of burpees." He tries to keep the tone light, because he's doesn't want to make a big deal of the fact he's feeling vastly over-protective. He's aware that she's never been a fan of feeling over-protected.

"I'll not argue on that one." He's surprised at that, and wonders if she's taken some of their recent conversations to heart. "But you're right, it's a good idea, and I'll join you another day when I'm fully recovered."

"I look forward to it." He does, actually. He makes a mental note to add "brutal exercise routines" to the list of things that sound better with Clarke's company.

"I'll have a go at making some supper while you're busy. I'll come get you when it's ready?"

"Sure. Try not to give us food poisoning." He smirks at her slightly, equal parts teasing and affectionate, and goes in search of an empty space and some motivation.

…...

Clarke gazes down at the stodgy mess in the saucepan and frowns in some consternation. How is it possible that she can perform complex surgery but can't make edible food out of a ration packet labelled "soy protein and spiced rice"? There's an odd clumpy texture to it that she can't quite fathom, but she supposes that at least it should be edible. She has discovered many things today, she muses. She has discovered that Bellamy loves Queen as much as she does, that there might be some places that missed the death wave, and that, when faced with a nuclear apocalypse, a bunker that contains every item of lab equipment imaginable is a pretty great place to hide. But she has not discovered a deep and abiding love for soy protein and spiced rice because, frankly, no one could. She takes an experimental mouthful, doesn't keel over dead on the spot, and decides that will have to do.

With a sense of resignation she admits that dinner isn't going to get any more inspiring and sets out in search of Bellamy. She hears plausible noises from the bedroom at the end of the corridor and enters to find that, in fact, the nausea-inducingly impossible routine has not induced any nausea, and he seems to be finding it not impossible either. He half smiles at her presence and she waits for him to finish his current set.

"Dinner's ready," she offers, "or at least as ready as it every will be. It tastes like cardboard and sawdust had a baby."

"Wow. Really selling your cookery skills there." She is momentarily unable to reply, because he lifts the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face, and in the process she sees more toned stomach than she thinks can really be good for her sanity. Because he's Bellamy, dependable, big-hearted, right-hand-man Bellamy, and he's not supposed to remind her that he's also, well, aesthetically pleasing. She catches herself staring, remembers to breathe again, and steps hurriedly backwards out of the room, only crashing into the door frame just a little with her right elbow as she goes.

"Well, yes. Dinner is dinner. I'll see you downstairs when you're ready."

"Sure." He seems thoroughly oblivious to her momentary distraction. "I'll just go hop in the shower. Be there in a moment."

Clarke bolts for the stairs and sets about putting as much concentration as possible into laying the table with a degree of precision that the task doesn't really merit. By the time Bellamy shows up, hair damp and smile broad, her cheeks have almost returned to their normal colour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter six

Bellamy has to admit that he's not particularly convinced by supper. This strange, starchy conglomeration is not really something that he wants to put in his mouth, but he's hungry and Clarke tried hard to make this edible so he smiles and thanks her for cooking for him. And she says that he's welcome so cheerfully that he can't really find it within himself to be critical. But, certainly, it has to be said that her cooking ability – or inability – is the first aspect of Clarke as bunker-companion which is anything less than absolutely perfect.

He's hungry from his workout and finds himself gulping down this stodge rather more eagerly than he thinks any sane person would under normal circumstances. He catches himself doing this and chastises himself for being a poor dining companion – he's not said a word since they sat down and at this rate she's going to have just grounds for insisting that they play chess after supper, and that's something he's determined to avoid.

"So... was there a reason you chose this particular dish tonight?" He's trying so hard to keep a straight face, but he's pretty sure she can see his amusement peeking through.

"I'd have thought it's obvious that I opened the rations cupboard and this caught my eye as being, clearly, a delicious and gourmet option. Once I realised that soy protein and spiced rice was available, how could I possibly cook anything else?" She meets his eyes, challenging him to respond, and it is obvious that she is biting back laughter.

"Delicious and gourmet are exactly the words I would have chosen. Really. It's the best meal you've ever cooked, in fact." She's sniggering in earnest now, and he is beyond glad that they are, for perhaps the first time in their entire acquaintance, safe enough that she can learn to laugh more freely. It's a shame that safety is only likely to last a couple of months, and hopes that happiness has become a habit by then.

"It's so awful." She is struggling to speak through her giggles. "I'm so sorry. It's a good job we didn't have lunch."

"Now that is true." He pretends to consider the situation seriously. "I think it's a very good job we didn't have lunch. Because if we'd had lunch, there is no way I would have eaten this, and that would have been a waste of food, and we can't afford to waste food."

"You see? It's all turned out for the best."

"Yes." The irony is strong in his voice as he squishes his rice experimentally with his spoon and demonstrates to her the way in which it adheres to itself. "Those are exactly the words I would have used about this meal. It has, beyond doubt, all turned out for the best."

"OK, OK. You can cook tomorrow. Because I certainly can't."

"Thank goodness. Quick, distract me from the fact I'm actually eating this. Tell me what our evening plans are."

"I thought we could play chess." Her eyebrows are raised in challenge and he knows that this is to be his punishment for teasing her about this sorry excuse of a meal.

"I thought we could not play chess." He counters. "I think it would be unfair to subject me to losing at chess so soon after forcing me to eat this." He can't resist another opportunity to demonstrate the interesting physical properties of his supper, by dropping spoonfuls from height onto his plate and watching them bounce. He sneaks a look at her face and sees her resolutely not laughing at his antics.

"Yeah, I'm not even going to argue with that. As long as we play chess tomorrow, we can do something else tonight. What do you suggest?"

"Movie night?" He's aware that he answers a little too quickly. He sounds a bit too eager, a bit too much like he's been planning this suggestion since the second Troy ended and Clarke uncurled herself from his side last night. The small, genuine smile that breaks out on her face in response, however, indicates that she doesn't really mind this at all.

"We should maybe not do movie night every night, Bellamy." She says gently. "I think that it would be nice to have a little variety in our wildly exciting social calendar."

"There would be variety. We would watch a different film each time."

"Not quite what I meant, actually." She reaches out towards his now-empty plate and stacks it on top of her own. "Come on, we can continue this over the washing up."

"Sure. But you're scraping the pan you cooked that stuff in. I refuse to clean up your mistakes." He grins broadly and leads the way to the sink. This, he thinks, must be the very definition of domestic bliss.

…...

Clarke enjoyed dinner. This realisation comes to her as something of a surprise, because she's in the middle of a nuclear death wave in a literal hole in the ground and she's pretty sure the food she just ate will sit in a ball in her stomach for the next week. But there's something about going through life-changing disasters with Bellamy Blake by her side that makes the end of the world rather a lot less threatening and even means they can laugh at their situation along the way. With that thought in mind, as she sets about attempting the washing up that he insisted she was doing, she asks a question that's been sitting at the back of her mind since that morning.

"So what's on tomorrow's breakfast playlist? Is it something I know or will I need to get practising?" She arches an eyebrow and looks over towards where he's faffing about with the drawers in the far corner of the kitchen.

"A good question. Any requests, Princess?" She flushes a little at that, and then is disappointed with herself. He's been calling her that for months, after all. She's just a little unsure when it started sounding like an endearment rather than a criticism.

"Only that it's something we can sing along to."

"Of course. I never knew porridge could be so fun."

"It was easier to wash up than this crap as well." She turns to catch his eye and finds his gaze fixed on something in one of the drawers. If she didn't know better she'd say he looked a little shy as he turns and holds something out towards her.

"I think I might have found this evening's activity." He offers quietly.

She can see what he's holding now – a small sketchbook and a couple of pencils. She flips open the sketchbook and finds it empty, the blank pages calling to her. She knows he can read her answer in the smile that breaks out across her face. Taking his hand, she half jogs down the corridor to the living room, dragging a bemused Bellamy behind her.

…...

He is faintly amused at the single-mindedness with which Clarke sets about her drawing, installing both of them on the sofa in the living room and then setting pencil to paper. After a couple of minutes he dares to break the silence.

"I hate to ruin your fun, but would it be acceptable if I found something to do? I was thinking I might go finish the chores you so cruelly abandoned and then grab a book." She jumps slightly, as if she had forgotten he was in the room, and then nods, barely looking up from the page.

By the time he returns some minutes later, kitchen spotless and a copy of Ovid's Heroides in one hand, she has rearranged herself over the sofa. She is now sitting lengthways along it, legs stretched out into the space he thought was his, sketchbook lying on one thigh, as she hunches over her work.

"Clarke?" He's momentarily afraid that she might be furious with him for interrupting, but she raises her head with a faint smile playing about her lips.

"Yeah?"

"Do you mind if I sit?"

"Go ahead." She responds, but makes no attempt to vacate his place and goes straight back to her drawing. Slowly, gently, trying not to break her concentration, he lifts her feet, slips into his seat, and then repositions her legs across his lap. She looks up for a moment, and he wonders if he has done something wrong, but she smiles faintly at him and then gets back to her sketchbook. He knows his hands don't need to stay cradled around her legs, as he struggles to open his book whilst incapacitated by this, but really he figures they may as well remain there. He's quite comfortable, and she would certainly complain if she wasn't.

There are worse ways to spend the evening, he reflects, than with a good book and Clarke Griffin. The silence is a little unnerving after a day filled with laughter, but she's there, by his side, still breathing at least for now, and that is all he could ever ask for.

When she does speak again, about half an hour later, he is startled despite her quiet tone.

"Here." She offers, holding out the sketchbook towards him.

He takes it, and looks down at her work, and he can't help his sharp intake of breath. Because there, on the paper, is his own face looking back at him. But it's not his face in a way he's ever seen or imagined his face. She's got the shape of his jaw correct, and the curls falling over his forehead, and the dusting of freckles – so much is recognisable. But as he notices the joy conveyed in the lines around his eyes and the relaxed curve of his mouth, he realises that she's drawn him as he is here and now, happy, stuck underground in the midst of an apocalypse with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter seven

It takes Bellamy an unflatteringly long moment to work out what is going on when he wakes up. As he stares at the ceiling, trying to puzzle out why this music is so familiar, he wonders why there is music at all. In a rush, yesterday comes back to him, and he realises that this can only mean one thing. He must have slept in, and that means that Clarke must have begun making breakfast, and that means that another plate of inedible food lies in his immediate future.

In a state of some alarm, he makes haste to the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time. He notices half way down that he didn't pause to put a T-shirt on, but decides that saving their breakfast from a terrible fate is more important right now than being dressed for polite company. Besides which, Clarke is the only other person in this place, and he doesn't think she's expecting high levels of breakfast table formality. By the time he makes it into the kitchen, some unhelpfully tuneless but broadly catchy song ringing in his ears, she is standing over the stove, tearing into a sachet of porridge and poised to pour it into the saucepan in front of her. With an agility he didn't altogether realise he possessed, Bellamy dives forward and takes the hand holding the porridge gently in his own.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Princess." He speaks into her ear to be heard over the music, painfully aware of the amount of exposed shoulder, left bare by her sleeveless top, currently in contact with his torso.

She turns slowly to face him, and he is simultaneously entertained by the rising colour in her cheeks and disappointed that she has pulled away.

"I wasn't actually going to start cooking it, obviously. I was just going to have everything ready for when you woke up." Well, now he feels foolish. Here he is standing in the middle of the kitchen in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, hand wrapped around hers and face still next to where her ear used to be, and she says he has no good reason to be here at all. He clears his throat awkwardly and shuffles backwards.

"Oh." He thinks probably he should say more than that. Try for a whole sentence, maybe. "I see." Surely he can do better than that? "What the hell is this song, anyway?" She looks even more surprised than he is that those are the words that ultimately came out of his mouth.

"This is Mr Brightside. You must know Mr Brightside. You're the one who's obsessed with old Earth culture, after all."

"I'll have you know I'm obsessed with the Greeks and Romans, Clarke, not whatever the hell this is." He wants her to face the full force of his mock outrage, but she seems to be distracted by the fight against her continuing blush and her determination to look anywhere but his naked torso.

"Really, Bellamy, you're such a nerd." He hopes that note in her voice is affection, not disdain. At least they seem to be recovering from the awkward moment.

"Yes, that I am." She finally raises her face again to meet his eyes, and he can't resist the opportunity to smirk at her evident discomfort. "A nerd – with abs."

On that note, he decides, it is time to go fetch a T shirt.

…...

Clarke decides she may as well find a productive task to fill the time it takes Bellamy to get dressed and cook their breakfast, so she sets about the highly useful activity of organising the ration packs thematically. This seems like a perfect opportunity to let her cheeks regain their normal colour. Unfortunately, it is also mindless enough to allow her to dwell a little too long on how infuriating it is to learn that he realises he is aesthetically pleasing and has no qualms about using it against her. After a couple of minutes, she hears his footsteps and retracts her head from the cupboard just far enough to greet him.

"Welcome back."

"What on Earth are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm organising the ration cupboard. By genre, basically. Rice based dishes here, porridge here. You get the idea."

"Yeah... Because you never know when your ability to survive a nuclear apocalypse might depend on being able to quickly differentiate pasta from stew." She peeks over her shoulder at his grinning face. He shakes his head at her and walks over to the stove, where he begins to make breakfast.

"Well, you won't let me do any cooking and I had some time to kill while you remembered to dress yourself."

"Yeah... Erm, sorry about that."

"I forgive you. You thought I was going to cook breakfast, it's no wonder you felt you had to act quickly."

"I'm pleased you understand." He leaves the porridge cooking for a moment as he walks back towards where she is crouched by the cupboard and offers a hand to pull her back to her feet. "Thanks for turning the music down a bit. I'm sorry I don't know these songs, but we could still dance to them even if I can't sing along?" He looks slightly nervous, his bottom lip a little tense, as if expecting her to be annoyed with him for ruining their kitchen party.

She smiles broadly at him in response. "That sounds like an excellent plan. The most ridiculous dance move wins." With that, she launches into a move that Wells once told her was called the "shopping trolley". Immediately, Bellamy responds, waving his arms wildly in a way that is broadly rhythmic and has an uncanny resemblance to a dying spider. Minutes pass, in which she has to remind him more than once to stop being a fool and stir the porridge, and she is genuinely sorry when he announces that it's time to eat.

…...

Raven has to acknowledge that Emori learns quickly. She got the hang of splicing after only one demo, and now she's moved onto soldering with a level of competence that seems to surprise them both. They sit, side-by-side, in the Earth Monitoring Station, getting on with making this giant heap of junk habitable for the next five years. Raven is pleasantly surprised to remember that work gets done quicker with someone by her side to help; it's been a little too long, she reflects, since she was part of a team.

"What do you want me to do next?" Emori's voice breaks into her thoughts, as she holds out the circuit board she's been working on for inspection.

"I know this is going to sound like a crazy suggestion, but do you think maybe we should take a break? Go and sit down to share a meal with our friends? It must be breakfast time by now."

"Raven Reyes, advocating taking a break from fixing things? What is wrong with you?" Raven is surprised at how easily the two of them have fallen into this comfortable camaraderie.

"I know. We'll probably regret it." Her previously lighthearted tone immediately changes. "Everyone will probably still be mourning Clarke and Bellamy."

"I think we'll be mourning them for a long time."

"Very true."

"Do you think there's any chance they survived?" Emori's question catches her off guard, because it seems like a completely ridiculous thing to ask.

"You do realise what's happening down there, right?" She finds herself sounding rather angry with her new friend. Because it's just not fair, to ask her questions that allow her to hope.

"Yes. But you do realise that Clarke is ridiculously good at surviving? And that the two of them would do anything to keep each other alive?" It sounds like Emori's getting at something, that she's thought of an idea no one else has.

"What are you thinking?" Raven has always been too curious for her own good.

"I'm thinking that Clarke would never have injected herself with nightblood made for me unless she thought it would work."

…...

Bellamy has to admit that breakfast is slightly overcooked. He may slightly have been enjoying their dance off a little too much and may slightly have not wanted it to end. But, he figures, it's still better than it would have been had Clarke had anything to do with it. She doesn't seem to be complaining about the food, but then she doesn't seem to be saying anything much. She has a pensive look about her and he wonders what has caused her sudden gravity.

"What's on your mind?"

"Well, I presume that today we're going to go through that shortlist of places where there might potentially be less radiation. And it got me thinking, by the end of today, we'll know whether there's anywhere habitable on that shortlist. So, by the end of today, we'll have a pretty good idea of whether or not we're going to survive." Her lower lip quivers a little at that, and he can see that it's costing her a lot of effort to try to sound matter of fact about this. He made his peace with this long ago, or, at least, it now feels a lifetime ago. Because he knew what he'd chosen the moment he heard that rocket leave as he sat here, waiting for her. So he reaches out across the table towards her, and she closes the distance between them, and their fingers are intertwined as he reassures her softly.

"If we find out that none of the places on our shortlist are survivable, we make a new shortlist. And if that fails, we try again. And we keep trying until we find a solution."

"You think there is a solution?"

"Yeah, of course there is. You and me, together? We're unstoppable."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter eight

It turns out, after all, that they're really unstoppable in more of a metaphorical way, Bellamy reflects. Because they are, in fact, briefly stopped by the fact that the kitchen lightbulb blows as they are washing up the remains of their breakfast. And he finds his mind jumping to the question of what might happen in darkness, and remembering Clarke curled up against him during movie night, and begins to think that really lightbulbs might be a bit of a waste of time after all. But then she asks him to replace it and because he's a gentleman and cares about her too much to make her completely uncomfortable, he goes in hunt of a lightbulb. It's old Earth technology he's not particularly familiar with – archaic electronics were not included in his guard training on the Ark – but he's a bright young man with at least a little common sense, he likes to think, so before long the kitchen is illuminated and they crack back on with being unstoppable.

There is something rather lovely about working on the maps and modeling with Clarke by his side. They complement each other best of all when they have a mission to accomplish, and they divide the tasks between them as they work through their shortlist, interrupting one another's thoughts frequently with trivial observations or lighthearted comments.

"This valley has a sea view, Bellamy." She's pointing to one of the shortlisted areas of the map. "How about that? Or, at least, it does if the sea still exists after all this."

"I think probably we should choose our future home based on functionality rather than aesthetics, Princess." He teases.

"Spoilsport. How could you prioritise food over the picturesque?"

"The picturesque? And you call me a nerd?" He says in tones of mock horror.

"Austen was the only old Earth literature I liked at school."

"Why does that not surprise me?" He can't resist continuing this conversation. "Something tells me you probably identified strongly with Elizabeth Bennet."

"I mean, we have already established that I like my love interests dark-haired and unconventional." She meets his gaze this time, unabashed, and he thinks that maybe he can see her heart in her eyes.

"What do Lexa kum Trikru and Fitzwilliam Darcy have in common?" He holds his breath, regretting the words the moment he says them, because he knows he's treading on dangerous ground here, but he's pleasantly surprised when she cracks a smile at his poor humour rather than melting into a storm of tears.

"I miss her, still, you know? But it's different now. It's like she said - the dead are gone, but the living are hungry."

"She'd be so proud of you, Clarke. Everything you've done and been both with her and without her." He wishes he'd known Lexa better, really. She must have been a pretty phenomenal woman, if Clarke loved her. He's surprised, given the content of their conversation, to find that she has reached out and laid a hand on his arm.

"Thank you."

He lets the silence settle for a moment, basking in the knowledge that they've taken another step forward together, before he draws her attention to the valley he is currently investigating.

"This one looks like a serious contender. Look, it's forecast to miss the brunt of the death wave because of this mountain range. It supported thick forest before Praimfaiya, so if it escapes the worst I see no reason why it shouldn't still be forested. So there would be game. And this map shows a few villages here, so it must have been suitable for crops and so on. There's a lake here, so fresh water. And the prevailing wind blows this way, so that sand storms from that big patch of dessert shouldn't encroach too far on it." As he points out the features on the map, he can feel the excitement rising in his voice, because he can tell that this really is it. This is their lucky break, the place where they can make a home. He turns to meet her eyes, and she's grinning back at him.

"It's perfect, Bellamy."

"Home sweet home." He has barely finished the cliché before he feels Clarke's arms wrap around him, and he hugs her back, and they are there for quite some time, holding one another, looking forward to their future.

…...

Clarke is beyond delighted that they have found a home, where they can live together and grow beans and hunt rabbits and live a beautifully mundane existence for the next five years – provided she can solve the problem of making Bellamy radiation-proof. She suggests that, as the afternoon is drawing on, they call it a day on their work and save planning the logistics of the journey for tomorrow. Bellamy is only too happy to agree, but has a suggestion she's not entirely sure she approves of.

"I think you should join me for a bit of a gym session now, in that case." He doesn't appear to be joking. She's no delicate flower and she knows that she is not unfit, but there's something very intimidating about the idea of attempting to do physical exercise in front of Bellamy. Because it's very much his territory, being good at things that require physical strength, and she doesn't want to embarrass herself.

"Only if we can play chess afterwards." She figures that she may as well get something out of this, however much she agrees that she also needs to be fit and well to survive above the ground.

"That was not the deal, Princess. The deal was a chess match for a movie night, not a chess match for a workout."

"How about a chess match for a movie night and a gym session."

"Deal."

"I'll see you in ten minutes? In the room you seemed to be using yesterday?"

"Sure. Do you have something to wear?"

"I'm sure I can find something. There seems to be everything in this ridiculous place."

…...

Clarke has demonstrably found something to wear, but Bellamy isn't exactly sure it's the most sensible outfit she could have chosen. The leggings are practical, yes, but they are also clingy, as leggings usually are, and he can see her legs in more detail than he thinks is good for his sanity. And that drapey oversized gym top, of the kind he's seen in media from the first part of the twenty-first century, is just silly – how are you supposed to achieve anything with that thing flapping about every time you so much as move? It's almost like outfits of this genre were designed to make women look sexually appealing while exercising, he reflects, rather than to actually empower them to, you know, exercise. Reminding himself to breathe, he gives her a little wave, then realises he looks rather stupid doing so and walks towards her instead. The way she's biting her bottom lip ever so slightly, and shifting her weight from foot to foot, makes her look almost nervous – but this is Clarke Griffin, and surely she couldn't be nervous about something as trivial as a gym session.

"Excited?" He asks.

"That's one way of putting it. Do you think I'm going to survive this? That routine you were doing yesterday seemed nasty."

"I was going to suggest that we didn't start with that. Not because you're not capable, and all that, but because you've been ill and I want you to be sensible. Also because, frankly, I don't think I want to do that two days running."

"Thank goodness for that. So what do you suggest?"

"Just a bit of a circuits session? We each pick our favourite moves and string them together?"

"Because who doesn't have favourite exercises, of course."

"OK." He compromises as his smile threatens to split his face. "I pick my favourite moves and you just have a miserable time?"

"That sounds more like it."

That said, she proceeds to get stuck into the challenge with more enthusiasm than he was expecting. She's pretty brisk on the shuttle runs, and perseveres with her crunches with such steely determination that by the end of the hour she's managed more sets than he has. He wins the longest-held-plank contest, which is no surprise as he used to win it on the Ark as well, but she gets so genuinely competitive about it that for a moment he thinks she might push him over out of sheer spite. She has, without doubt, more steel and determination than should rightly fit in her small frame and, frankly, he's a little in awe of her.

…...

Clarke enjoyed their workout quite a lot, actually – Bellamy is a rather cool gym buddy, always challenging her to be her best self, and always generous with his praise when she succeeds. Obviously, the fact that he's easy on the eye make the experience more pleasant too. But she decides against admitting that she had a pretty great time, because she wants to extort as many chess matches from him as possible. With that goal in mind, she reminds him of their deal as he stands over the stove, watching supper simmer away.

"So... ready to lose at chess after dinner?" He turns at the sound of her voice, and her heart hiccups a little at the way his hair, still damp from his shower, falls in soft curls over his forehead, at the way his cheeks crinkle as he smiles at her, at the way his eyes are dancing with something that looks suspiciously like love.

"How do you know I'm going to lose?"

"Please, everyone loses at chess when they're playing me." She can't help the way that just a smidge of arrogance enters her voice, because it is, in fact, true.

"Thankfully, it seems you lose at cooking, so I guess we're even." She walks towards him and has to admit that whatever he's making smells pretty good for ration pack stodge.

"What are you making?" Her curiosity gets the better of her.

"Soy protein and spiced rice." She feels her jaw hit the floor at that.

"No way."

"Yes way. Observe: this is what it's supposed to look like. And smell like, and taste like." He takes a spoon and feeds her a mouthful of the rice, and she melts slightly at the careless intimacy of the act.

"That's it. You're cooking for the next five years."

"Yes. Yes I definitely am." She can't resist the urge to stick her tongue out at him like a toddler at that, and he seems only too happy to rise to it and return the gesture. She figures she can at least provide bowls and cutlery, even if she can't actually provide food, and makes herself useful serving up and carrying it to the table where they dig in. It's by far the tastiest meal she's had since they got stuck here, and she's not particularly successful in resisting the temptation to gobble it down with more speed than dignity.

"It's funny how much quicker it is to eat this when it's edible." He teases, indicating their mostly empty plates.

"Thank you for cooking. Pretty convenient that I got stuck in a bunker with someone so useful."

"Yeah, I don't think that was exactly what I was thinking when I stayed. I think there were other things on my mind than whether you'd get to eat decent food if I wasn't here."

"What... what was on your mind?" She lowers her eyes to her plate as she asks the question that's been swimming round in her head for days. He is silent for a moment, and she wonders if maybe he doesn't want to answer the question, or perhaps doesn't know how to answer the question, before he continues.

"Lots of things, I suppose. How I didn't want you to go through this alone, and I wasn't sure I could go through that alone. I mean, I know I wouldn't be alone, because the rest of them would be there, but without you. And I didn't want to live at your expense, because of your sacrifice, again. But most of all, after everything we've been through together – after all of those times when I've tried to say 'If I don't see you again' and you wouldn't let me finish the sentence," he smiles at that, a slightly watering, quivering smile, like a young chick that's not quite sure it's going to survive the world, and she reaches out to wrap her hands around his, just as he did for her only that morning, and squeezes hard, "after all that, I needed, at the very least, even if we both died here, to be able to say a proper goodbye."

"Thank you for staying, Bellamy." She says at length, voice shaking. "I would do the same for you, too, you know that, right? Never doubt it." Her right thumb rubs slow circles on the back of his hand, their supper slowly cooling, forgotten.

"How could I doubt it when you did do the same? You're the one who stayed here and climbed that tower and missed the rocket." She wells up at that, and isn't entirely capable of producing words, because she's so moved to be supported in the midst of this disaster by someone so utterly understanding. She doesn't know how me manages it, to be so strong in so many ways, and so big-hearted in so many situations, and, frankly, she's a little in awe of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter nine

"Well, say what you like about my chess skills, but at least it didn't take me very long to lose." Bellamy leans back in his chair with what Clarke would like to think is an air of resignation, but resignation would imply that he cared about the outcome, and she's not really sure that's true.

"I don't think that's the attitude, really, Bellamy. You could at least have put up a fight." She's aware she sounds just a little petulant, because she was looking forward to this game which was over almost before it began.

"That was me putting up a fight." He shrugs and begins tidying up the pieces. "I actually am that bad."

"Well at least you've got plenty of time to practise." She's trying to sound more reassuring than patronising, because she doesn't want to spend the next five years with someone who refuses to play chess with her, but it's something of a challenge.

"It's going to have to be a pretty great movie night to make up for this. Who knows, I might even agree to play this ridiculous game again if I get to choose the movie."

"No way. Last time you chose and we ended up watching Troy. That's three hours of our lives we'll never get back. I'm just saving you from yourself, here."

"Hey, I've learned from that mistake. I promise I'll do better tonight."

"Whatever. You can choose, but I'm bringing my sketchbook in case this ends badly."

…...

Bellamy doesn't know what movie he would choose, because he never gets the chance. The moment he switches on the TV and starts scrolling through the options, Clarke squeals in delight and insists on watching something called "Mean Girls". He is surprised by her choice, to say the least, because the branding is all pink and there are photos of heavily made up teenagers on the poster and above all because the title of this thing is Mean Girls. She has never really struck him as a young woman who wants to watch pink movies about cosmetically enhanced mean folk, but she is thoroughly insistent, and it leaves him wondering if maybe he doesn't know her so well after all.

"Why, Clarke?" He can't help but ask. "Why this? Forgive me for questioning your taste, but this doesn't really look like our kind of movie."

"Trust me." She is already curling her legs up beneath her and shuffling towards him on the sofa. "It's not what it looks like. It's really funny. It's like a satire on early twenty-first century American teen culture."

"Other satires are available, you know. Less... pink... satires. The satires of Juvenal, for example, on the luxury and excess of imperial Rome." After all, she didn't seem to think that being a nerd with abs was such a bad thing.

"Shh." She reaches up to place a finger over his lips, and he feels his breath catch in his throat. Reaching an arm around her, he pulls her towards him in a move that now feels utterly natural – was it only two days ago he had held her like this for the first time? - and presses play.

…...

It is only a matter of seconds before Clarke gets her confirmation that the movie choice was a great one. She can feel Bellamy's chest shake with giggles even at the opening scene – she has to admit, she has always quite liked the bit with the over-protective parents and the milk money, and now it reminds her in a bittersweet way of her own mother, trapped but hopefully safe beneath the ground hundreds of miles away.

"So, did I do good?" She is determined to get him to admit she was right.

"Shh." He returns her gesture from only moments earlier, placing his finger across her lips. "I'm listening." That, she decides, counts as vindication.

Minutes pass, during which his giggles grow more pronounced and his chest grows correspondingly less comfortable. Emboldened by the darkness, and the fact that he's been running his hands through her hair since about the third scene, she rearranges herself so that she's lying with her head in his lap instead. For a moment, he is totally and completely still, seemingly not even breathing, and she wonders if perhaps she has crossed a line she didn't even realise they had drawn. But then he sighs deeply, and resumes his playing with her hair, and the film goes on playing, and all is well in this little world they have made for themselves.

…...

If he'd known it could be like this between them, Bellamy thinks, he's pretty sure he'd have found an excuse to share a sofa with her months ago. Admittedly, the months they have known each other have not exactly been filled with leisure time, but he's certain he'd have moved heaven and Earth to make time to simply sit and be himself with Clarke. He wonders why they wasted all that time, when they first met, in hatred, and so much time in between in misplaced anger. As it is, here and now, they have all the time in the world – or, rather, five years, which is certainly more than enough time to be getting on with.

The film is a good one, it turns out, very pink but at least it's ironically so. The routine they've built up during their work that day, of lighthearted running commentary on what's going on around them, holds up during the film, in spite of his best attempts to get her to keep quiet so he can actually hear what's going on.

"I've always wondered how she could be so naive as not to realise there is no back building." Clarke is saying now. "Don't you think?"

"Don't I think what? You didn't ask a question."

"You know what I mean."

"I'll know what you mean better if you pipe down so I can follow what they're saying."

She doesn't reply to that, just turns towards him as she's lying in his lap so that he has a better view of her rolling her eyes.

"Thanks, that's much better." He teases. "Silent reactions only please." She frowns sternly at him for that, and as he's looking down into her face he is surprised to notice that he seems to be stroking her cheek with his thumb. He wonders when, exactly, that happened, but before he has the opportunity to come to his senses and remove his hand she has trapped it with her own and rearranged herself to watch the movie. The next time, he is the one to break the silence.

"You know, I think Gretchen Wieners is something of a tragic heroine here. She only wants to find love and acceptance, but she is the object of the audience's derision."

"There you go again, being Bellamy, with your ridiculously generous heart. You're not supposed to feel sorry for Gretchen Wieners, Bellamy. She's an idiot, and selfish, and literally her only redeeming feature is that her father invented toaster strudel."

"What even is toaster strudel?" This gap in his knowledge has been bothering him.

"No idea. I presume it must have been popular on Earth at the time, for her to go on about it."

He makes no response to that, distracted by the urgent necessity of rubbing the palm of his hand gently along Clarke's exposed upper arm. She snuggles further towards him, and he decides that tomorrow they definitely need to find a blanket for movie night. He's aware that she had said they shouldn't watch a movie every night, but he's pretty sure he'll be able to get that overturned.

The film stops playing, eventually, as films do, but neither of them is in any hurry to move. His hand continues its slow journey up and down her arm, and the other one is still caught in her grasp, so really he couldn't turn the TV off even if he wanted to. As they sit there, staring at the empty screen where the credits have long since ended, he wonders if perhaps she has fallen asleep and he ought to get her back to her room.

"Any requests for tomorrow's breakfast soundtrack?" Her voice catches him by surprise.

"I thought you'd fallen asleep." His voice is soft and a little rusty from the long silence.

"No, just can't quite convince myself to move." There's a trace of laughter bubbling up in her tone.

"Me neither. We probably should though, we've got plans to make tomorrow for the move to our new home." He can't help the way that his heart warms when he says it. They've found a home, and they're going to spend the next five years there, together.

"Fair point." She starts sitting up at that, untangling herself from his arms, and he thinks it is not just his own wishful thinking that makes her actions look reluctant. She stands up, and he does too, and there they are after a lovely evening together – and a lovely day together – faces only a whisker apart, and he can almost hear her heart skip a beat as she reaches out and takes his hand in hers.

"I'm looking forward to domestic bliss." She whispers into the slither of space between them, and he can feel her warm breath on his cheeks. "I'm going to keep chickens and call them all Juvenal." With that she gives an impish grin, and the moment is not ruined but enhanced, because it is so completely them that he laughs aloud and pulls her in for a hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter ten

Clarke hears footsteps on the stairs the next morning and knows that she has lost the race to choose the day's breakfast soundtrack. Eager to get on with the day, with dancing round the kitchen, with planning the journey home, with hugs and movies, she throws on some clothes and follows. By the time she arrives downstairs, Bellamy has selected a song that she doesn't know but has to admit is perfectly appropriate. The lyrics are not exactly sophisticated, but the melody is catchy and the singer is repeating we are going home in a way that chimes perfectly with the same thought beating a rhythm through her mind.

"I don't know this one." She comments, with a hint of a question in her voice.

"Me neither." He admits, as he hugs her good morning and she wonders when that became a thing that they did. "I guess it was one of the many that didn't survive the test of time. But it's on a playlist I found on the theme of homecoming. It seemed quite appropriate for this morning."

"Definitely." She agrees, a smile spreading across her face as she remembers her parting shot of last night. "I think the first order of business for Operation Homecoming has to be designing a chicken coop."

He laughs at that, and she catches herself thinking that he's laughed more in the last two days than he had in the whole of their previous acquaintance. She hopes with her whole heart that his laughter will endure beyond this bunker, beyond this pocket of time and space, and into the perfect life they will build for themselves with their chickens in their magic valley.

"You promise me," she begins, reaching up a hand to his cheek and allowing her thumb to trace the shape of his laughter in the lines around his mouth, "you promise me that you will laugh on the ground, too. That this joy isn't going anywhere." He meets her eyes and replies without hesitation.

"As long as you're not going anywhere, this smile isn't going anywhere either."

…...

Breakfast gets made, as it always does, and he's learnt the lesson of yesterday and become a little more attentive. It's a crucial kind of multitasking, the ability to stir porridge whilst dancing around the kitchen. The song changes, and a slower tempo washes over them as a disembodied female voice begins with the words I'm coming home. Clarke reaches out to him, a slight blush rising in her cheeks, and he understands her silent request perfectly. Encircling her in his arms, he begins the sort of gentle swaying movement that he remembers from slow dancing at socials up on the Ark. She relaxes into him, her body warm against his, cheek against his neck, his face buried in her hair, and he'd really quite like to freeze this moment forever but unfortunately the porridge needs stirring. Just as he wonders how to extricate himself from this wonderful location in order to attend to their breakfast, the song unexpectedly cuts to an incongruous fit of rapping. Clarke stills against his chest and giggles into his collarbone, and he places a soft kiss on the crown of her head before pulling back and turning to the stove.

"Most successful slow dance ever." He smiles warmly, not wanting her to get uncomfortable because her suggestion didn't quite go to plan.

"I suspect we might have other opportunities to practise."

"We'd better do." He slops the food into bowls and offers one to her. "Let's try again tomorrow."

…...

Raven nibbles absentmindedly on her breakfast as she allows the conversation around the table to wash over her. Her friends are discussing their plans for the day, and she can't help but reflect on the length of her own to-do list.

"I've got quite a lot of to do on the algae farm." Monty offers, with an apologetic look at Harper. Raven knows the two of them have barely seen each other since they got here, with him having so much to do to get the farm up and running, and not daring to entrust any of the tasks to anyone else.

"I guess I'll carry on cleaning up round here, getting some more of the rooms back to being habitable." There is no missing the resignation in Harper's tone, and Raven feels a flash of sympathy for the friend she knows is made for action more than for dusting.

"I was wondering if you wanted to spend the day together, actually, Harper?" Echo surprises everyone by asking. The speed at which Monty's eyebrows disappear beneath his fringe in response to the unexpected suggestion is pretty comical, really, Raven thinks. "I was thinking that I could help out with getting this place cleaned up and working and you could teach me how all this space stuff works, because really I haven't a clue how to even turn on the lights. And then I thought this afternoon maybe I could teach you some Azgeda hand-to-hand combat moves as a thank you?" Raven is rendered speechless, which is no mean feat, because really, how has Echo understood her friend so well, and on such short acquaintance, as to realise that this is the nicest thing anyone could have done for her today?

"That... that sounds great, Echo, thanks. I'd really like that." Harper offers her a heartfelt smile.

"Good." Echo smiles in response, and the expression looks somewhat unaccustomed on her face.

"Are you spending the day with Raven again?" Murphy asks Emori, and Raven feels a twinge of guilt that she has befriended the grounder so quickly, and monopolised her time, and apparently left Murphy feeling like a spare part.

"I thought I would, yes." Emori's voice is carefully neutral, as if she's not sure where this is going and doesn't want to provoke an argument.

"Great." Murphy is smiling, and for once in his life Raven doesn't think he's being sarcastic. "Do you mind if I join? I figure it's about time for me to learn how to do something useful around here."

The expression of surprise mixed with joy which blooms over Emori's face should be bottled, Raven thinks.

…...

Bellamy suggests that the first thing they need to plan is their route, and Clarke is quick to see the logic in this.

"Absolutely." She agrees. "We need to know how long the journey will be to know how much food and water to take with us, and all the other logistics that I probably haven't even thought of yet. The other factor, of course, is that we don't yet know whether or not we have access to a rover, but I'll go and check that out when the death wave has passed."

"Good thinking. So, factors in planning our journey. I presume we want to avoid the areas where the computer is predicting hazards, such as these deserts where we're expecting sandstorms to be a risk. And obviously we want to go via Polis." She looks confused at this, and he's not sure where he lost her. So far, everything he has said seems obvious.

"Why on Earth would we go via Polis?" She indicates the map. "It's miles out of our way, and then to get home from there we'd have to cross this desert full of potential storms."

"To check on the bunker." How has she not understood this? Surely it is obvious.

"I don't think that's a good idea." She says it carefully, laying a hand on his arm as if to soothe him. He has a feeling he isn't going to like what comes next. "I know you're worried about your sister, but please, think about it logically. We wouldn't actually be able to open the bunker from the outside, and even if we did manage to open it or to get the inhabitants to open it, we'd kill everyone inside if we opened it while the radiation levels are still so high."

"Yeah, I get that. And we're going home, anyway, not joining them in the bunker. I just think we should go check on it, you know? Check that it's not been breached, see whether they need any help." Why does she not understand? They need to go see if there is anything they can do for his sister. And their people, of course.

"I see." She doesn't sound convinced. "So you want to just go check whether the bunker is intact and on the off-chance that they need our help. But in order to do that, we'd have to go over a hundred and fifty miles out of our way, carrying extra food and water for the journey. If we don't have access to a rover, it's physically impossible, and even if we do I think it seems incredibly foolish."

"Foolish. I see." He feeling bitterness rising in him at her judgment.

"Yes." She still sounds maddeningly calm. "Added to that, it makes the journey much more dangerous because of the increased risk of sandstorms. So, basically, you want to risk both of our lives to go and look at the outside of a bunker when we cannot realistically be of any help to the people inside. I'm not willing to let you do that, Bellamy. I'm not willing to let you risk your life on a fool's errand."

"I don't see how it's your decision to make, Clarke." He's getting angry, now, because why does she not understand how he feels about this? Why does she not see that he needs to be where his sister is, to know that she's still safe beneath the ground? "What I do with my life is my business. So let me plan a route to that bunker."

"No, Bellamy, you don't understand. If we -"

"No, Clarke, you're the one who doesn't understand. So shut up and understand that I'm doing this, with you or without you." She recoils at that as if he has slapped her, snatching her hand away from where it has been rubbing circles on his arm. He hears the bitterness in his own voice and doesn't like it, doesn't like the sharp tone he's taking with her, but this conversation hurts, so much, and he just wants to be able to look go to his sister. ""I get that you think you're doing what you have to do, like always. Like when you locked her out of the bunker and locked me up. But you were wrong then and you're wrong now. I wouldn't expect you to get it. You don't know how it feels, to love someone that much, and leave them behind, and have no idea whether they're alive or dead."

"Do I need to remind you that my mother is in that same bunker, that I know how it feels to have left her behind?" She is angry now, all trace of her earlier patience and sympathy suddenly gone, as she stands and stalks away from him. In the doorway, she pauses, turns, and asks in a voice so soft that he has to strain to hear her, "Do I need to remind you that I know how it felt to send you into Mount Weather, fully expecting to never see you again?"

Before he can gather his wits to respond, she is gone, and with her, he thinks, something of their relationship might be gone too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter eleven

Clarke has never punched a wall before, but this seems like an obvious time to try it. She makes it up the stairs and into her bedroom before she does so, with some force, and with a guttural scream that she's pretty sure he can hear even from the other end of the bunker. Let him, she thinks, because in this moment she wants him to know that she is hurting. The punching helped, she thinks, it helped her to express her frustration and there is something satisfying about the futility of punching unyielding concrete and about feeling the pain blossom in her knuckles. So she does it again. And again. And again and again and again until she is sobbing and cannot really see the blood oozing from her hand through the veil of tears.

Her frustration dealt with, there is only sorrow now, and she doesn't think concrete will be much help in offering up a productive coping mechanism for that. So she does what every young woman who has been disappointed by a man since the beginning of time has done, and throws herself down on her bed, and weeps.

She weeps for the home she thought they were making together here, and the home they will not travel to together after all. She weeps for the closeness she thought they had, for the times she thought they could read one another's thoughts and understand each other perfectly, for the illusion that they were always and absolutely on the same page. She weeps for the demise of their togetherness, for the end of you and me, we're unstoppable, for no more I couldn't leave you alone.

But most of all, she weeps for Bellamy Blake, because if he goes out there alone on a misbegotten quest to look for his sister, he will almost certainly die, and she can't shake the feeling that his blood will be on her hands for failing to stop him today. Because stronger even than the feeling of betrayal in his decision not to stay by her side, is the feeling that she cannot let him die, not on her watch. Even in a world where he's no longer with her, she needs to know that, at least, he's still going to be OK. She wishes she had a magic wand to wave, to save him from his own stupidity, to pay him back for all the times he's saved her. But there is precious little magic in this world which just keeps ending, again and again and again, and so it seems that there is nothing she can do but watch him walk away from her into danger.

Actually, it occurs to her after some time, as she feels her thoughts becoming more coherent and less no no no not this, there is one thing she can do. She was always going to make him a nightblood, and originally she was going to do it so that he could stay by her side as they lived the next five years together. But, she figures, it is about the only thing she can do now that will be of any use to him when he sets out alone.

He might have let her down today, proven himself not to be the rock she thought he was, but she knows, in this moment, that she will never let him down. After all, she knows how much it hurts now.

…...

He sets his jaw in a hard line as she marches away up the stairs, but his stoic expression gives way at the first raw roar of pain he hears echoing down the corridor. How could he not weep at this? Heaven knows he didn't mean to hurt her. He just needed to see to his sister, and she just didn't seem to understand.

That train of thought brings him sharply back to her parting words, and he can't help but reflect on the implication of what she said. And, really, he thinks he has always known it, that this thing that exists between them is love, because what else could it be?

But no amount of love for her can change the fact that he has a responsibility to his sister, or change the guilt eating away at his insides as each day passes without news of her.

He wonders if he is supposed to go after her, to apologise for upsetting her, to try to make a compromise, or to say something about love. But he hardly knows where to begin, so he never does. And maybe this makes him a coward, or maybe it makes him a brute, but even so, he feels powerless to do anything about it.

And when he looks back on it, as the days stretch out between them and the happy ending seems only to grow further away, he will come to realise that it is not by upsetting her and driving her to walk out of the room that he ruined everything. Rather, it is by not going after her.

He faffs with the computer, unable to process what he's reading over the roar of his own thoughts pounding through his mind, and time passes slugishly. She comes back eventually, and the clock tells him it has been hours but he thinks that maybe it has been a lifetime or two. Without a word, she settles herself at the screen on the opposite side of the lab and begins typing feverishly.

"Clarke?"

"Don't bother, Bellamy." The voice doesn't quite sound like hers. "I get it. Your sister is your priority, and anything you might have said in the past about us sticking together takes second place to her."

He has no response to that, because he thinks she is right.

…...

It feels unnatural, after all that has passed between them up until that morning, to work in silence. He is half expecting her to interrupt his train of thought with a dry observation on their future home, or a joke about dinner, or an invitation to play chess, but no such interruption materialises. Gradually, painfully, he gathers his wits and plots a course on the map. She's right, he realises. It is going to be very difficult to get to Polis and then to their new home. And he's not sure how they're going to split the supplies, or even if he would be welcome if he did make it to the valley, and now does not seem like the time to ask.

She seems to be troubled by no such lack of focus, staring with rapt attention at her computer screen as she works away at something. He looks round to check on her more often than he cares to admit, because even if his responsibility to his sister is his priority, Clarke still owns a substantial slice of his heart.

He can't do this any more. Several hours have passed, and all he's achieved is drawing a thoroughly unnavigable line on a map and realising he's well and truly screwed it up on many different levels. He kicks the desk, hard, and stands up.

"I'm going to make some supper."

She nods in silence, eyes boring a hole in the screen before her.

He cooks in silence, and her cheerful blonde face does not appear around the door to tease him. They eat in silence, and she washes up in silence, while he stands by, cleaning the spotless counter top for something to do. He invites her to do something after supper, to watch a movie or read a book or even play chess, and the shake of her head says no in silence.

She speaks only to thank him for cooking, and to tell him that she's tired and going to bed early.

Restless, not yet ready to turn in for the night, knowing he will never sleep if he does, he stalks the bunker in silence for some minutes. Curious, he goes to the computer she spent the afternoon at and looks to see what she was working on. Perhaps she was planning her own route, or working out how they will divide the supplies.

What he sees there surprises him. Because Clarke has spent the afternoon working out how to make him a nightblood. And when he sees that, he realises that he has let her down again. Because even while he was telling her that she was not his priority, he was still hers.

…...

The next morning, Clarke is up and about before him. He knows this because he hears her footsteps on the stairs. For a brief moment, he allows himself to believe that the blazing row of yesterday was only a nightmare, that their happy little pocket of respite from the storm is still blissfully intact. That he will bound down the stairs and she will take his hand and they will sway to a melody that couples have fallen in love to for centuries.

But then the music never comes, and he knows that the dance party is over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I promise there will be more fluff in the future, but these two have a few things to sort out first...


	12. Chapter twelve

Emori drifts into wakefulness, her head pillowed on John's chest, as has become her usual morning routine in recent months. Looking back, now, she can hardly remember life before John Murphy walked into her world. He's maddeningly imperfectly perfect for her, and she feels beyond lucky that they have survived together so far. Lifting her head, she sees that he is awake and looking down at her, and offers him a sleepy smile.

"Morning, beautiful." He strokes her hair softly, and it is so unlike the public face he shows the world that she has to wonder how she got so lucky as to be the one person he allows to see him with his guard down.

"Morning, flatterer." He laughs at that, as she intended he should. She needs to work up her courage to ask him a question, one that's been preying on her mind for a good twenty-three hours now. And talking about emotions isn't really her strong suit. "Why did you join us yesterday?" As soon as the words are out of her mouth she starts panicking, tripping over her tongue in her hurry to explain herself. "Not that it wasn't fun, of course. It was. It was much more entertaining with you there. I just – it's never something you've seemed interested in before – and I had to wonder why. Was it because of Raven?"

"Raven? What does Raven have to do with it?" He sounds somewhat confused.

"Well, I mean, I know you guys are close. And she's a very beautiful woman. And very fun to hang out with. And I also sort of wondered if you were still trying to make up to her for the whole shooting thing, or something." She can hear herself babbling, but her words seem to be running away with themselves.

"Let me get this straight." He sounds calm and slightly amused, and that really wasn't what she was going for. "You think I asked if I could spend the day with the woman I love and her new best friend out of desire to hang out with the best friend? Did it not occur to you, you ridiculous woman, that I wanted to hang out with you? That I might want to spend more time with you? That you'd come back to our room the evening before raving about what a great day you'd had and I wanted to join you in your fun?"

"You actually signed up to spend the day faffing with electronics to spend time with me?" She lets herself believe it, just for a moment, and sees a beautiful world opening up before her, where this is the true kind of love that people tell stories about. The kind of love she didn't expect for herself, an outcast loser with a weird hand.

"No need to sound so surprised. And I suppose, while we're being honest, I did feel a bit useless while you were off having fun and being helpful the day before." In his deliberately casual air she can hear that this is hard for him to say. "And I've been thinking, since Bellamy sacrificed himself and stayed behind with Clarke and it was all a bit dramatic and emotional. I've been thinking about what's important. And I wanted you to know that, you know, you're important. And I'd stay behind with you if ever I had to." She wishes that people would stop underestimating this wonderful impossible man, and she wishes he would stop underestimating himself most of all.

"Thank you, John. I'd stay with you too."

…...

Clarke doesn't really know where to begin.

She doesn't know where to begin on a practical level, because she doesn't think there's much point in her decimating their breakfast, and she doesn't exactly feel like music this morning, and she's not sure what else there is to do first thing in the morning in a bunker. She decides, ultimately, to go and get on with solving the nightblood problem, because however things lie between them, she still needs Bellamy to be protected when he goes through that door, needs him to be safe and alive and whole, with her or without her.

That brings her to the worrying fact that she doesn't know where to begin on an emotional level either, because there's so much for her to process from yesterday. Above all, she's got no idea how to start putting things right, or even whether she wants to. The hurt he inflicted yesterday, with his bitter tone and thoughtless words about splitting up and going it alone, is still fresh. But she shouldn't have risen to it, shouldn't have been angry with him in return. Because, surely, he only presented his opinions in such an objectionable way because he was upset. And in the core of the matter, that his priority is his sister, not her – well, how can she be angry with that? Because, really, it's only the truth, even if it's a painful one. And she thinks she's probably not supposed to be angry with her friends for telling her the truth, however much it hurts.

It certainly does hurt a lot, though, to see that beautiful future she thought they were building unravel before her eyes.

…...

Bellamy doesn't really know where to begin. If she's not starting the morning with cheesy music, in keeping with their routine of recent days, then things are evidently very much not OK. And that's a shame, because he was enjoying how wonderful things were between them, how that thing that has to have been love was flourishing. But he needs to go to Polis, so he doesn't really see that he has a lot of options here. Still, he thinks, with a shuddering breath, it is not good that he has upset Clarke so much. He shouldn't have thrown that thing about locking Octavia out of the bunker back in her face, because actually they'd talked that over in the rover before the death wave hit and he was supposed to forgive and forget, not hold on to it, festering and toxic, to throw into the middle of an argument and score a point. And, above all, he knows that pointing that gun at him was the hardest thing she's ever thought she had to do, and it was cruel to remind her of it.

But, really, he figures, it was pretty cruel of her to make him chose between her and his sister. It's not like he wanted to have to choose between them.

With a heavy sigh, he decides that he can, at least, begin with breakfast.

…...

Clarke has to admit that she is completely out of her depth. She's no idea how her mother, a fully trained doctor but no biochemist, made any headway with this, and she is certainly feeling utterly overwhelmed. Both Becca and her mother left extensive notes, so her current plan is to ready them all, very very thoroughly, and then follow the same procedure as her mother did to the letter.

It is doing her good to have a challenge to distract her from the thoughts swirling through her head. She is so absorbed in her task that she doesn't notice Bellamy is up and about until he's standing right in front of her.

"Breakfast's ready." He offers, and she finds herself upset to notice that he does not look as low as she feels. It's silly to feel that way, she tells herself. Whatever may have gone awry between them, he is still her friend, and she should not want him to feel miserable. But, a small but surprisingly loud voice in her mind insists, she would feel vindicated, somehow, if he were feeling wretched too.

"Thanks." She forces a smile, and follows him to the kitchen. She reaches out to take her bowl of porridge when she hears him take a sharp breath.

"What happened to your hand?" If she didn't know better, she'd think that was genuine concern in his eyes.

"Nothing." She responds, because surely he knows exactly what happened to her hand. Heavens, the whole island must have heard her little meltdown. Well, they would have done if there were anyone else alive out there.

"It doesn't look like nothing. Here." He opens the med kit, and his voice is as soft as the antiseptic wipe he holds out to her, and for a moment she allows herself to thaw just a little.

"Thanks." It might still be a monosyllable, but even she is forced to acknowledge that it holds rather more genuine warmth than any interaction they've had for almost twenty-four hours.

"You're welcome." He doesn't seem quite sure what to say next, and after frowning just a little too hard, he goes for "You need to look after yourself."

She snorts at that, at his sudden misplaced concern, after his supreme unconcern of yesterday, and she wonders how anything can every be right between them again.

…...

It is, in fact, even worse than he expected. He was hoping that after sleeping on it she'd start returning to her normal self, but that snort tells him that he has done nothing but say the wrong thing all morning and has no hope of fixing this any time soon. She looks so genuinely hurt, and so distressingly like the above-ground Clarke who killed Finn or mourned Lexa, rather than the more lighthearted Clarke of recent days, that he begins to wonder if maybe he has, in fact, made some serious mistakes. Clearly, this tense civility is not going to improve the situation any time soon so he decides to go for a slightly more direct – and potentially painful – approach.

"I noticed you were looking at your mother's notes on making nightblood. Thank you for that. Is there anything I can do to help with it?"

"Eventually, when I've read up and I'm ready, I'm going to need you to do the bone marrow extraction. Could you look that up, make sure you're ready to do it?" He gulps slightly at that, and hopes she doesn't notice, because he's not sure he will ever be ready to drill a hole into her hip. He is forced to dwell a little longer than he would like on the fact that even though she can currently barely stand the sight of him, she is still prepared to go through agony to preserve his life.

"Yes, of course. I'll get started on that straight after breakfast."

"Thanks." She says, and he congratulates himself on a coherent, polysyllabic conversation. At this rate, he thinks forlornly, they might watch a movie together again within the decade.

The day passes slowly, with no merry stream of conversation to speed it along. He doesn't mind admitting to himself that he is, frankly, frightened of performing the bone marrow procedure. He has already compiled a list as long as his arm of things that could go wrong by then end of the afternoon. The hours creep by and eventually he makes supper, and they eat it in stony silence. He makes a mental note to make something other than soy protein and spiced rice for dinner tomorrow because he can feel it turning to concrete in his stomach, heavy with memories of happier suppertimes.

Once again, she excuses herself to go to bed early and he wonders if this is how it will be for the rest of their time together – whether that turns out to be five weeks or five years. She will go to bed early, and he will haunt the corridors late into the night. He aches to reach out and hug her goodnight but busies his hands in looking for something in the stationery drawer instead.

"Sleep well." He puts the hug he wishes he could give into his voice. "Here." He holds out a find from the drawer in her direction and is pleasantly surprised when she reaches out a hand to meet him halfway. "Another sketchbook. In case, you know, you needed one. I mean, I realise you probably haven't filled the first one yet, but I just thought that... it might make you happy." Because, really, he wants her to be happy, even if he is completely at a loss as to how to achieve that right now, amid this mess of bruised fists and distant sisters and mismatched priorities.

"Thank you." Her voice wobbles a little, but the smile is there, and it's her real smile, on display for the first time all day, and the grin that grows on his face in response is irrepressible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	13. Chapter thirteen

Clarke stares at the ceiling for a while before conceding that she's had all the sleep she's going to get. It wasn't exactly much sleep, she reflects, but it was some, and that will have to do for now. She decides that she may as well get on with something productive, and that getting up to do a workout seems like a good idea. At least that way, she'll be spared the awkwardness of working out in total silence with Bellamy later this afternoon. With a heavy sigh, she pulls on some leggings and a sports bra and rolls out of bed and onto her feet. Treading quietly so as not to disturb Bellamy – it is, after all, really more nighttime than morning at the moment – she pops down the stairs to grab a glass of water before getting started.

She comes to an abrupt halt when she sees the jigsaw. Anyone else, thinks, when heading towards the kitchen in what is, to be honest, the middle of the night, would walk straight past a jigsaw. But she can't, because she knows what it means. After all, she knows the man who must have attempted it, seeing as he is the only other sentient being in this bunker.

She remembers when they found this particular item on their hunt for entertainment options, and she remembers the scorn with which they joked about it. Because, really, who would make a jigsaw of a foodstuff? And these Earth things, baked beans she thinks they were called, are not exactly aesthetically pleasing in and of themselves. Add in the fact that the puzzle just forms a vastly repetitive photo of thousands of the things, and they were agreed that it was a completely pointless creation, likely to put anyone who attempted it to sleep.

Well, judging by the fact that he's completed a couple of hundred pieces of what looks to be a fiendish puzzle, it can't have put him to sleep quickly. And, seeing no other logical explanation, she entertains the possibility that he started this puzzle because he couldn't sleep, because he was deliberately seeking out the most soporific activity he could imagine, because maybe his thoughts are as much of a mess right now as hers are.

Yesterday, she though that learning he was upset too would make her feel vindicated. She realises now how wrong she was, because vindicated couldn't be further from her thoughts. For the first time since their argument her thoughts are remarkably straightforward. She simply feels awful.

…...

At least this morning, as he drifts into wakefulness, the bunker is not blanketed in the oppressive silence of yesterday. There's a sort of rhythmic thud coming from the room they've been using for their gym sessions, as if a small, enthusiastic blonde woman might be doing a set of squat jumps. He is caught by surprise by just how much this hurts, this realisation that it seems working out is yet another thing they no longer do together. He wonders if he should start a list, so that he can review it each night when he torments himself with thoughts of how thoroughly he has screwed everything up.

He has to admit it: he is worried about Clarke. He's always worried about Clarke – or at least he has been, for as long as he's know her. But at the moment, he's worried about her in a more specific way. She's never been one for getting up at the crack of dawn to do angry squat jumps, for one thing. Nor has she ever been one to let silences settle between them as thickly as has been the case since the argument he's beginning to think of as Disunity Day. He wants her to walk back into his life, the resilient, optimistic, utterly lovable Clarke whose company he enjoyed so much in their first couple of days stuck in this ridiculous hole in the ground.

He misses her.

The thought hits him with the force of a small dropship crashing to the Earth – and he knows what that's like, because he's been in one. It takes all of his resolve to keep moving towards the kitchen. Because he finds himself desperately wanting to run up the stairs and interrupt her and spill the contents of his heart to her, and beg for her forgiveness, and tell her that he'll never leave her side.

But then he tears open the morning's breakfast ration pack, and is beset by memories of making breakfast with Octavia, as if they were there, lurking, ready to ambush him the moment he thought of going to the valley with Clarke. He remembers the terror on her face every time she had to curl up beneath the floor, and wonders how she's dealing with ruling beneath the floor now. He remembers the terror he felt, when she got cut playing that ridiculous lily pad games and they were both certain it would give her away. But most of all, he remembers his mother's words, those words that have been the background noise to his every thought for the last seventeen years.

Your sister, your responsibility.

…...

It is, all things considered, a more successful day, but he thinks that might just be a sign that he currently has incredibly low standards in days. Clarke comes down the stairs just as he is putting breakfast on the table, showered and changed and looking at least less angry, even if she still looks distinctly sad. But she puts a bit of effort into meeting his eyes when she says good morning, and he'll take that for the minor miracle that it is.

"How was your workout?" He figures that this is about as neutral as a topic of discussion can get.

"It was what it was." He's somewhat frustrated by that completely empty response. "How was your jigsaw?"

That floors him completely. He takes a deep breath, regretting deeply that he didn't manage to clear away the evidence of his insomnia, before deciding that he can play the game just as well as she can. If she wants to be some Ice Princess, he can be cold too, dammit.

"It was what it was." She scowls at that, and he doesn't find as much satisfaction in it as he expected to. He sighs and decides to try again.

"So now we've both established that neither of us slept well, shall we maybe get on with our day?" He's caught her by surprise, he can tell, and there's a beat of total silence, in which her spoon hovers in midair, arrested in its journey towards her bowl, and then she laughs out loud. And maybe it's a slightly hysterical laugh but it's still the best sound he's heard in days. He lets the laughter settle for a moment, and she is the next one to pick up the conversation.

"I've compiled some notes on the nightblood procedure I'd like you to go through. Mostly about extracting the bone marrow from me, but also a few other bits and pieces so that you know what's going on more generally."

"That's super helpful, thanks. I have to admit I'm pretty worried about this whole thing. I'm not looking forward to hurting you."

"Well, it'll hardly be the first time you've done that." He feels the weight of those words as an almost physical impact, and the tears spring up in his eyes immediately.

"Clarke... I don't know what to say."

"No." She sighs heavily. "I noticed."

"I know it doesn't make it OK, Clarke, not at all, but you at least have to know I didn't want to hurt you. But... it's Octavia, Clarke. My sister, my responsibility. I don't get to choose to do what I want in my life, my priority has to be my obligation to her." He's aware that he's crying rather more than she is, and briefly reflects that this seems a little unfair when he's only trying to do the right thing.

"And if you could choose to do what you wanted, what would you do?"

"You can't ask me that, Clarke. You can't ask because it's unfair, because it's a hypothetical situation I'll never get to be in. But you also don't need to ask, because you know exactly what the answer is."

"Yeah." It's barely a whisper, and her hand is half way across the table, and he wonders about taking it but thinks it would probably only make this harder for both of them. "I guess I do."

…...

Clarke is worried about Bellamy. This guilt he carries around with him, the absolutely manic need to look after his sister's interests rather than his own, cannot be healthy. She's a competent young woman, not an obligation. And, really, when it comes to nuclear apocalypses, she's pretty sure it's not possible to be much safer than in a well-equipped bunker with Indra by her side. She wonders if perhaps her view of the situation has been hampered by her own self-interest, and resolves to return to the issue in the coming days, when she has a little more distance and, hopefully, a smidge more objectivity. Apart from anything else, she's not going to be able to have a useful conversation with him about it if they're both being such watering pots all the time.

She can hear Bellamy calling her for supper, so it's time to forget about nightblood for the day and think of some topic to have a stiff and polite conversation about. She misses it so much, their easy back-and-forth, but frankly she's too tired to even attempt to be that woman.

She walks into the kitchen in time to see Bellamy pouring soup into a bowl and feels her heart sink still further.

"What's that?" She asks, trying to keep her voice neutral.

"Chicken and sweetcorn soup."

"I hate sweetcorn." She knows that she sounds like a petulant child, that this should not be at the top of her list of concerns right now. "I'm sorry. I know that whether or not I like the rations isn't important, I should be grateful for what we've got. And I'm grateful that you cooked, obviously. Thanks. I just hate sweetcorn." She's aware she doesn't sound grateful at all, but it seems there is nothing to be done about that.

"I know." He's grinning, and she can't understand why. "I know you hate sweetcorn. That's why I made you tomato soup instead. We're going to need to make the most of all the rations to survive, but there's no reason I can't eat the meals with sweetcorn in."

She thinks she probably needs to pick her jaw up off the floor, but she's not really sure she can. How is it possible that this wonderfully confusing man is prepared to abandon her to go off on a fool's errand in a desert but won't let her eat a foodstuff she doesn't care for? She cannot reconcile the Bellamy who would make her tomato soup with the Bellamy who would make her cry. She cannot believe that they can possibly be the same man.

Meanwhile, he has served up her soup and is indicating a plate in front of her with exasperated fondness.

"Come on Clarke, supper? I've got these, you bring the crackers. Oh, and we might want spoons."

She doesn't want a spoon, she thinks with some asperity. She doesn't even really want tomato soup. She just wants Bellamy, this version of Bellamy, to stick around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	14. Chapter fourteen

She was wrong, she thinks, a couple of days later, looking back on the day of the impossible conversation and the soup. She doesn't just want the Bellamy who made tomato soup. Forced lighthearted supper conversation is no substitute for genuine closeness, it turns out. The gulf between them is still there, he's just waving chirpily from the other side. He still can't bring himself to meet her eye, and no matter how hard she tries not to notice, the jigsaw goes on growing.

She has to be glad that they have, at least, reached something of a truce. She thinks that if she were currently speaking more... usefully... with Bellamy he'd probably have some adorably nerdy military history metaphor at the ready to describe the way they've outlined their positions and moved no further. These lines they have drawn in the sand between them are unspoken but no less real for that. Only this morning, as he was pottering around the kitchen making breakfast, he rested a light hand on her lower back as he went to squeeze past her to the sink. This kind of thing was normal between them, she remembers, only a week and a lifetime ago. But it is certainly not normal any more, so she jumped about a foot and turned round in time to catch the expression on his face, a sickening combination of horror and desperate sadness. He had only himself to blame, she thinks now. He knows they don't touch any more.

He knows, too, it seems, that some topics of conversation are off limits. His sister's name has not passed either of their lips in days, nor is there any mention, however vague, of the future. And, really, she is growing fed up of this, absolutely sick of it, because this is not who they are. Ever since that conversation they shared with Jaha, to get Bellamy cleared for shooting him, all those months ago, they have stood by each other during difficult discussions.

She does not recognise these two scared souls who tiptoe around each other, and it frightens her.

And, frankly, if she has to endure one more falsely cheerful reminiscence about that time when Miller was the reader in the Unity Day pageant, she swears she will scream.

…...

He was expecting to have nightmares, of course, in the wake of Disunity Day. He was expecting images of Clarke consumed by flames to flash before his eyes, or of her suffering some hideous fate at the claws of some wild animal in the valley alone, or perhaps even scenes from some alternate reality where he had left her even earlier to go in the rocket with the others when the death wave hit. Set against this, he was expecting visions of Octavia trapped beneath the floor, again, but this time with over a thousand hostile grounders to keep at arm's length, of her screaming at him that she could not abandon him for Clarke, that she would never forgive him.

His expectations were wrong. Instead, as the nights roll past, he sees one scene from his time on Earth, over and over again. A thousand thousand times, Clarke falls into that trap on their mission to rescue Jasper. And a thousand thousand times, he does not catch her. Sometimes he feels that it is deliberate, that this old Bellamy has chosen to let the privileged Princess fall, in a cruel analogy for the way he is letting her down now. Sometimes it seems an honest accident, as if he is just a fraction too slow. Sometimes she screams and it breaks his heart. Every time, she falls. And every time she dies. And every time he is doomed to go through the rest of his life never relying on her presence by his side, never holding her close. Never knowing her at all, not really.

…...

Raven finds herself enjoying their time on the Ring more than she expected to. They have established roles for themselves, and something of a routine, and the whole thing is working rather smoothly, she thinks, as she hands a screwdriver to Murphy. He has not turned out to be the most promising electrical engineer in the world, she has to concede, and he is not exactly taking to the more technical side of things as quickly as Emori has done, but he has carved out a perfectly useful niche for himself in fixing some of the many defunct items of furniture that were left up here, and that is more than she's ever known him to do before. Emori is good for him, as she is good for all of them, and frankly Raven has already reached the point where she can't imagine being without her new friend. Echo is, perhaps, still more on the margin of things, but the firm friendship she has struck up with Harper as they get the Ark up and running seems like something of a step in the right direction. All in all, she reflects, things are going rather well.

That is, things are going rather well as long as she doesn't think about Clarke and Bellamy. She hates herself, just a little, for quite how often she doesn't think about them. That thought brings tears to her eyes and a thick knot of guilt to her throat, so she immediately sets about showering more attention on the circuit board in front of her than it really deserves.

Her thoughts – or attempts not to think – are interrupted by some commotion in the corridor. Emori catches her eye then runs to the door, just as it opens to reveal Harper and Echo, both panting for breath, with smiles splitting their faces.

"You need to come with us. We found something." Raven isn't sure she's ever seen Echo look quite so... unterrifying.

"Echo found something." Harper clarifies. "All the credit goes to her."

"What?" Raven asks, wondering why all this enthusiasm can suddenly be necessary. "What have you found?"

"So we were working on sorting through that storeroom or warehouse type area on Deck B? We thought there might be something useful there, you know, medical supplies, stuff you could use to fix electronics, whatever." Echo needs to get to the point, she thinks. This is not a good moment for this normally reserved woman to become loquacious.

"And you'll never guess what we found." That useful contribution comes from Harper.

"Could you get to the point, do you suppose?" For once, Raven is grateful for Murphy's contribution. Actually, she thinks, that's not fair. He's been pretty helpful the last few days. Her new desk chair is a vast improvement over the previous wobbly stool.

"Oh, yeah." Harper giggles breathlessly. "So we found, what, eight barrels? About this big? And they're all full of something, and, well, the labels all say that they're hydrazine, and so we thought -"

Raven is out of the door before Harper finishes her sentence.

…...

They have, she thinks, as the day that will mark a week since the evening of personalised soup rolls round, established a routine which at least means they spend as little time as possible exchanging awkward pleasantries.

She is always up first, working out alone until she hears him making breakfast. By contrast, he exercises in the afternoon, then stays up late. Mostly, the evidence suggests that he works on the jigsaw in the evenings, that jigsaw which is growing at roughly the same rate as the shadows under his eyes, but sometimes she hears him pacing the corridors instead. They work in the same room during the morning, going through everything they will need to know to make him a nightblood, but they do not really work together. This morning, for example, she sits at her computer in one corner reading her mother's notes, while he is on the opposite side of the lab teaching himself which of the surgical instruments he will need to use to take the bone marrow sample.

"Clarke?"

"Mmhmm."

"Is this the one you mean?" He holds up a rather brutal looking drill, the one they used on Luna only a short time ago, and she has to repress the urge to shiver at the sight of it.

"Yeah." She keeps her voice as empty of emotion as she can, but she knows he is not fooled at all.

The old Bellamy would have rushed over and taken her hand. Or maybe even enveloped her in his arms, and told her that it would be OK, that he'd be by her side through it all, that nothing bad would ever happen to her on his watch.

But, instead, this Bellamy fixes his eyes on the floor, and clears his throat, and turns to sort through their collection of surgical dressings.

She does not recognise these two scared souls who tiptoe around each other, and she has had enough of it.

"Bellamy." He must be able to hear the change in her tone, as he looks up at her walking towards him, and at the utterly lost look in his eyes most of the logical arguments she has prepared whilst staring at her bedroom ceiling over the last week fly out of the metaphorical window.

"Clarke?" It is part question, and part cry for help, and she hardens her resolve. There are, she believes, some things that need to be said.

"She's a human being, Bellamy, not a duty. Not an obligation. And apart from anything else, she's not a defenseless infant any more, she's a young woman – I mean, she's barely six months younger than me!" He looks somewhat dazed at that piece of news that he already knew full well, and she takes a deep breath and continues in a calmer tone. "She was strong enough to win that conclave. And she's got Indra, and Kane, and my mother by her side – people she can trust, people you can trust. I know you feel responsible for her, that your mother made a big deal of that, and I know even if you never say it that you still feel guilty for her being found and your mother being floated. But she's long since forgiven you for that, Bellamy, and your mother would too."

"That doesn't mean I've forgiven myself, Clarke." He dashes a hand angrily across his eyes and returns to sorting the dressings.

"I know. Forgiving yourself is always going to be the hardest part. Believe me, I know - I seem to remember I once abandoned you for three months while I tried to forgive myself. But does it at least mean something that the people who love you have already forgiven you?"

He doesn't respond to that, and she takes a deep breath and presses on anyway.

"I think it would be... good for you to work on forgiving yourself, Bellamy. I hate watching you be all conflicted like this." It's now her turn to brush away tears. "And I know things aren't exactly brilliant between us at the moment and that there's a lot going on but... if you need to talk to anyone, about anything, I'm here, OK? I'll always be here for you." His fist tightens on a bandage at that, and she can't help but curse her poor choice of words. "I'm not trying to influence your decision about... about going to Polis. Honestly, that's your decision to make. It's just that, if you do, you know, leave me, I want it to be because you've chosen, not because you feel obligated by this responsibility."

The silence that follows is not a happy thing, she thinks – how can it be when they are doing so much weeping between them? - but it has a certain peace to it now that she has said her piece.

"Here, let me." She reaches out for the gauze he is shredding beneath his anxious fingers, and carefully uncurls his hand with her own. He does not shy away from the contact as she feared he might, and for now, therefore, she is counting this conversation as a success. "Go clear your head for a bit, Bellamy. Walk up and down the corridors or do a gym session or something. I'll see you later." He reaches out to catch her hand as she draws away, and squeezes it, softly, once.

"Thank you, Clarke." She just catches the words as he passes her.

…...

There is, he reflects later, on about his four-hundredth burpee, something very Clarke about that conversation, about the utterly fearless way that she got on with confronting head-on the conflict that has been a part of him for years, and about the way that she somehow maintained her compassionate nature whilst doing so.

He knows his Classical literature - he has read the Aeneid, and he's pretty sure this is not how the story goes. He's pretty sure that when the man, driven by duty, strikes out without her, the woman left behind is supposed to rant and rave and curse him to a grim end. He's pretty sure she's not supposed to talk about forgiveness.

If that thing that was growing in his chest wasn't love before, it certainly is now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	15. Chapter fifteen

Clarke leaves Bellamy to his own company for the afternoon, and as the hours begin to stretch out she wonders if perhaps she has made some gross miscalculation and everything will now grow even worse. She is on the verge of going to look for him when she hears the music. It is quiet, and slow, and certainly couldn't be further from an invitation to a dance party, but it is at least there. She stills at her desk for a moment, allowing the notes to wash over her, and praying that this is a sign that, perhaps, a little normalcy is going to creep back into their lives now. She lets out a hollow laugh when the singer gets to the bit about love is not a victory march, because, frankly, so much has been obvious to her for a while, but a faint smile pulls at her lips regardless as she stands and makes her way down the corridor to see what awaits her in the kitchen. She pauses in the door, allowing herself the luxury of watching him for a moment, because he's moving with a lightness she hasn't seen in days, and when he turns and sees her there his smile, although rather smaller than those stupid fake smiles he's been practising for the last week, reaches all the way to his eyes.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself."

"Soup?" He gestures at the bowls in front of him, and she cannot help but well up slightly. She wonders if tomato soup will always taste bittersweet from now on. She nods, fiercely, and hopes he gets the idea of gratitude and optimism that she's trying to convey. The silence that follows them as they take their places at the table is less oppressive, she thinks – or maybe that's just wishful thinking. She's casting about for a topic of conversation that is uncontroversial but not completely mind-numbingly irrelevant when Bellamy interrupts her thoughts.

"Thank you. For everything you said earlier, but not just for that. For all the other times you've told me what I needed to hear, too. Does it get exhausting, always being right?" There's so much of his old wry humour in his voice as he asks that question, and she knows, in that moment, that Bellamy, her Bellamy, will be back eventually, even if he's not quite here yet.

"No problem. You'd do the same for me. You do do the same for me, all the time. It's what we do for each other. You remember that first morning here when I was freaking out because you'd stayed and you told me I needed to use logic rather than guilt to make my decisions?"

"Yeah, maybe I need to practise taking my own advice. Correction, though – that was the third morning. You were ill from the radiation for longer than you think."

"Well, time does fly when you're having fun."

"You call being covered in burns and vomiting sporadically fun?"

"I don't remember the painful bits. I just remember you being there every time I woke up, watching over me."

"It's what we do for each other." There is a beat of silence, before he manages to summon something that almost resembles his usual smirk. "Good to know that you find me creepily watching you fun, though. That's totally normal." They both laugh at that.

"I didn't find it creepy, you idiot. I found it endearing."

"Wow. If I'd known that was how to endear myself to you I'd have tried it months ago."

"No, you would not. You would not have wanted to endear yourself to me months ago, and I'd have probably lynched you if you'd tried."

"When we very first got to Earth, maybe. But you grew on me quicker than I let on." He drops his gaze at that, and begins studying his soup intently.

"You, too." She can barely even hear her own voice, but she knows he gets her, loud and clear.

…...

He hasn't made a decision yet, not even vaguely, and it suddenly seems incredibly important to him that Clarke understands this, that she doesn't think that all this treading dangerously close to the question of what they mean to each other has actually changed anything about this awful situation. He clears his throat and decides he may as well come straight out with it.

"I just... I need you to know that I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. About... you know, Polis and everything. I'm still working it out."

"Of course. That's fine. You've got some time to think it over." She says it a fraction too quickly, and he curses himself for taking them back a step again. "So, are you feeling confident about the bone marrow procedure?" He sighs in relief at the transparent change of subject – or at least, he tries to. Somehow, this seems to be a potentially troublesome topic too.

"Parts of it. There's one thing I really don't get, though. You haven't given me anything to read about anesthesia. Are you somehow going to be able to put yourself under, before I take over?"

"No... Bellamy, I'm not going to be knocked out for it. I'll give myself a shot of local anesthetic to the hip, but I can't be under general anesthetic. I've thought it all through, I'm going to have to be awake so that I can start work on the bone marrow straight away, before it deteriorates." He thinks he feels at least part of the bottom fall out of his world at this news.

"You're... you're going to be awake? I'm going to be making a hole in your hip while you're wide awake, with nothing more than a numbing shot between you and the drill?

"It'll be OK, Bellamy, I promise. I trust you."

There is no good reply to that, he thinks. Because the words that are trying to force their way out of his mouth are mostly about how trusting him doesn't seem to have served her very well so far.

"Anyway." He cringes at the false brightness in her tone. "I'll wash up, and then I'll be going to bed, I suppose. See you in the morning." With that, she takes his bowl, and practically jogs to the sink. He wants her to stay, to talk more about that forgiveness thing, and maybe hold his hand again. They could watch a movie together, and actually keep vaguely similar hours, and everything could be wonderful.

He's being ungrateful, he muses. Because, really, this evening is at least a solid step in the general direction of wonderful.

…...

She curses herself the moment she leaves the kitchen. He was trying, she could feel it, he wanted to start making things better, with the music and the soup and the smiling. But she had to go and get overwhelmed by her stupid emotions, by a sudden need to break down and cry like some teenage girl – to be fair, she is a teenage girl, but it's a long time since she's had the opportunity to behave like one. In some ways it is worse, it turns out, having these odd snatches of Bellamy back, but knowing he might ultimately leave her anyway. He seemed a bit too keen to make sure she realised that he might still do that, she thinks. Maybe he's just trying to protect her, encouraging her to guard her heart more carefully from him in the future.

She's not ready to go to sleep, not yet, but she can hardly go back downstairs now and admit that she ran away from him. Restless, she paces up and down her room for a couple of minutes, but decides quite early on that this particular behaviour can be his thing, not hers. No, she is restless for something else to do. Tentatively, she picks up the sketchbook he gave her last week, the peace offering she hasn't used yet, and finds a pencil.

Before she knows it, on the page in front of her, a pair of very familiar hands are shredding an innocent piece of gauze. Quick as a flash, on the next page, that half-smile from supper time this evening is preserved on paper. The next page, and a wooden spoon, being used as a microphone, springs into life.

By the time she collapses, exhausted, into her bed, the two weeks they have spent in this bunker fill the sketchbook, and her mind is emptier than it has been in days.

…...

Clarke wakes up early the next morning – of course, that is not new. But the fact that she actually feels rested, well, that is a development, and a positive one at that. The sketchbook she used last night lies open on top of the bedclothes and no doubt the pencil is now entangled somewhere in her sheets. After seeing the last drawing, of that look on his face when she threatened to name all the chickens Juvenal, and dwelling on it for a heartbeat too long, she draws a deep breath and puts the sketchbook resolutely to one side, on top of her bedside table. She likes to think that, one day, she might share these sketches with him, but she knows that today is not that day. She steps out of bed with something approaching enthusiasm, and she's not sure where that came from. Well, actually, maybe she is – there's a half-formed plan swimming about in the back of her mind that brings a new sense of purpose to these early morning workouts. But she's not willing to let herself focus on that too hard, not yet. Dressed and ready to go, she heads downstairs for her water.

She is on autopilot, heading for the kitchen, when she grinds to an abrupt halt at what she sees. Or rather, at what she doesn't see. There, on the table, where Bellamy sits at night to do the dratted jigsaw of the ridiculous beans is... nothing. An empty space, recently polished into the bargain, by the looks of things. And no sign of a jigsaw. At all. Not so much as a stray, forgotten puzzle piece, and the box is no longer on the nearby shelf it used to occupy.

She's never wept at the sight of an empty table before, and she tells herself she won't start now. Unfortunately, her tear ducts don't quite seem to have got the message.

Momentarily distracted from the water and the gym session, she casts about the living areas for clues. There is no sign of the jigsaw anywhere, and she has to wonder what he has done with it. Has he thrown it out? Burnt it somehow? Hidden it in the depths of some storecupboard to rot? Clearly, whatever he has done with it, he has decided not to pursue this absolutely pointless activity as a sleeping aid any longer, and her mood lifts at this news further than it probably should. She has no luck with the beans, then, and is glad of it, but as she is about to give up and fetch her water and get on with her day, something catches her eye as being different and out of place compared with yesterday. There, on the arm of the sofa where they used to sit to watch movies, a book lies with its spine bent open. A copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses, that a certain keen reader has apparently abandoned about a hundred pages in.

Perhaps, she considers, as the warm glow of optimism steals over her against her better judgment, some things might be changing for the better.

…...

He ponders what to choose for breakfast music as he tears open the porridge and listens to the sound of Clarke doing her morning squat jumps on the ceiling. He still hasn't decided by the time he hears her walk back to her room and start the shower. It occurs to him that he is, in fact, overthinking this, but he wants to convey a general intention of practising a bit of cheerfulness without her thinking he's being inappropriate or insensitive or presuming they'll be dancing any time soon. In the end, he takes a risk and opts for Bohemian Rhapsody – a nice nod to their shared affection for Queen, but neither inappropriately jovial nor insensitively romantic. And not something he'd be tempted to attempt comedic dance moves to.

Yeah, he's definitely overthinking this. Time for breakfast.

He can hear her footsteps in the corridor, and he could swear that there's something else there, just on the edge of his hearing, that there's a whisper of any way the wind blows as she joins in under her breath.

She's certainly not singing by the time she walks in the door, but he's pretty sure he can read the answer to his unvoiced question in her cocked eyebrow and half smile.

"Good choice." That settles it. She was definitely singing.

They listen to the music for a moment, without speaking, and it is only slightly uncomfortable. He wants to begin to talk about Octavia, to start sharing things about practically raising his sister that he's never shared with another human being because, really, if he cannot share these things with Clarke, who can he share them with? He's not entirely sure how to go about this, but starting at the beginning seems like a valid strategy. He focuses intently on serving their breakfast as he speaks.

"I named her, you know." He doesn't need to explain what he's talking about, because this is Clarke, and she always knows exactly what he's not saying.

"Well of course you did. Who else could possibly be enough of a nerd to call someone Octavia?" He grins at that, because it seems that pre-Disunity-Day Clarke is peeping through, and because he cannot help but be relieved at the success of this first small step towards talking about his sister.

"Fair point." He gestures to the bowls on the counter in front of him. "Guess what? I made porridge for a change." He is rewarded with a sudden flash of surprised laughter as she takes in his pathetic attempt at humour.

"You remember when I called this pureed sorrow?"

"Of course I remember. I was deeply offended."

"Well, I take it all back. It's better than anything I've ever cooked, after all."

"Most things are."

"Rude." Her voice can only be described as playful, and he'd been starting to forget what this side of her was like.

"I've missed this." He's not sure whether he's allowed to say that, but it's too late to wonder now.

"Me too." He has to strain to catch her whisper, and he can tell by the way she focuses intently on her food that he wasn't allowed to say it, but he can't bring himself to regret doing so. He can't bring himself to regret much, as long as they're together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	16. Chapter sixteen

"So, now you guys have found enough fuel to get us back to the ground, what next? Some decent food, maybe?" Harper and Echo look rather too smug, Raven thinks, to rise to Murphy's teasing.

"As it happens, guys, you're in for a treat." Harper offers them all a slightly strained smile. "Monty reckons the first batch of algae is ready. He's just bringing it now."

"So when you say treat," Echo clarifies, "you mean the green goop we're going to have to live on for the next five years?"

"Yeah. I was just trying to be optimistic, and be supportive of Monty, I guess?" Raven thinks that Monty should be eternally grateful for Harper. Girlfriends who love you enough to pretend to be excited about algae are in short supply in space.

"Did I hear my name?" Here comes Monty now, wearing a somewhat dog-eared apron he has acquired from goodness only knows where, and carrying a pot that smells distinctly unappetising, even from this distance.

"Harper was just telling us the good news." Raven can hear the sarcasm heavy in her own voice, but Monty seems utterly oblivious.

"Yes! Algae for everyone." He starts dishing up and passing the bowls around, starting with Murphy and Emori where they sit at the opposite end of the table. Murphy being Murphy, he seems disinclined to wait for everyone else to be served and instead takes a spoonful of sludge.

"John!" Emori sounds scandalised and she slaps him lightly on the wrist. "Wait until everyone's served, can't you? You're being rude."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise we were standing on ceremony." Emori's brows crease at that and Raven giggles somewhat at the signs that this is gradually descending into an entertaining domestic. "I'll gladly leave the rest of it until everyone's served. Possibly even a bit longer. It's revolting."

"Hey! That's not fair. Monty did his best with it. And you're going to have to get used to it anyway." Harper, of course, rushes to her boyfriend's defense.

They're all expecting another sarcastic response, because sarcastic responses are what John Murphy does best. But none is forthcoming, and it takes longer that it probably should for them all to realise that this means something is very much wrong.

"John?" Emori's voice is laced with concern, but she gets only panicked choking noises in response.

"Murphy?" That's Monty, of all people, dropping his algae serving utensils to rush to his former adversary's side.

Raven likes to think she's pretty unflappable, but as the spluttering noises continue, she finds herself fighting a rising tide of panic. Harper has now made it to her feet, and is slapping Murphy on the back in the way Clarke once taught them to deal with choking, but Echo is surprisingly calmly expressing the opinion that it doesn't look like a typical case of choking, and no one seems to have the faintest clue what to do if it's not. And then it hardly matters anyway, because Murphy has collapsed, slumped, onto the table, and an eerie, shocked silence hangs over them, broken only by the sound of Emori's sobs.

…...

"Smells good." Clarke enters the kitchen at supper time to the accompaniment of some miscellaneous soothing Classical music and an enticing savoury aroma.

"Yeah. Smells better than it looks, I have to say." He offers with a rueful grin.

"Wow. Really selling it to me there, Bellamy." She walks towards him, as if to peer round his shoulder, before remembering that getting used to being in physical proximity to someone who intends to leave her in less than a month is unlikely to be a recipe for happiness.

"I like to think our friendship is built on honesty." He seems to realise that this is not a helpful contribution as soon as the words leave his mouth, treading as it does rather too near to the question of whether their friendship is currently built on anything more than quicksand, and after gaping stupidly for a moment he returns her attention to supper with a gesture of his spatula. "It's supposed to be cheesy pasta but for reasons that are unclear to me there are these little orange cubes in it. I think they must be carrots."

"Cheese and carrot pasta. Sounds great." She is relieved to be veering away from emotionally troubling territory again.

"I suppose life as a ration pack creator must get boring sometimes. Maybe they were trying to be imaginative, liven things up a bit." If he continues to joke like this, she muses, she could almost believe they were still in that happy bubble of their first couple of days here together. Almost. Were it not for the fact that there are oceans smaller than the amount of personal space they hold carefully between them. She sighs at that thought, and he doesn't ask why, because he has learnt not to ask what is going on in her head recently. This is, she suspects, largely because he already knows the answer, and does not want her to itemise the many ways in which she feels heartbroken and betrayed by his intention to desert her. Instead, he simply pours pasta into bowls, and hands her a fork, taking great pains to ensure that there is no chance whatsoever of their fingers touching in the process. They take their seats at the table and Bellamy takes it upon himself to start the conversation.

"It never occurred to me that you're so close in age, you and O, until you mentioned it yesterday. I mean, I knew it, of course, it just hadn't really... you know, sunk in. Somehow it always seemed like more than six months." He looks slightly like he needs to shake water out of his ears, she thinks, as he cocks his head and grapples with the fact that he managed to overlook this for so long.

"I'm going to choose to interpret that as you thinking that I'm incredibly mature, rather than you continuing to believe she's still thirteen or something." She strives to keep this upbeat, and let him lead the conversation, rather than repeating her points of yesterday.

"Yeah, of course." He says this as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. "You managed to lead a rabble of a hundred criminals and make a peace treaty with twelve clans of grounders whilst younger than my sister is now."

"And she managed to win a conclave and now leads those twelve clans." Maybe, she thinks sourly, if they continue along this path, he might even realise that Octavia is a perfectly capable young adult before their five years are up.

"Fair point. She's still my little sister though." No such luck. She will, it seems, have to be patient with him for some time longer.

"Yeah. I get that."

"I guess the difference is that I knew her when she was tiny and helpless and it was my job to protect her. I didn't know you until you were intimidating and independent and I could barely keep up with you." She wonders, in this moment, whether he has always looked at her as if she is awe-inspiring. Perhaps he has, and she just never noticed, or perhaps it is a recent development.

"I choose to interpret that as a compliment." Teasing is safe. Teasing is familiar. Teasing is a long way away from awe-inspiring.

"Good. Because it totally was. I'm just a bit out of practice." She expected him to be smirking at that, but instead he seems to be concentrating very carefully on the patterns the grain of the wood makes on the tabletop.

"Your dropship days are long gone." She tries for a smirk instead, but she's not sure it suits her.

"And good riddance to them." He says, with a decisive bite to his tone.

…...

The conversation is lagging, and he can quite understand why – he hasn't exactly engaged with Clarke's attempts at teasing and he doesn't blame her at all for the fact she has evidently given up on talking to him completely, at least for now. But, somehow, he finds himself not in a very conversational mood, and certainly not a teasing one. Because, all of a sudden, there are rather too many things on his mind and he can't make sense of them all. Apart from anything else, it turns out he's somehow ended up loving a teenager who's practically his sister's age. Even if she's always seemed rather more mature than O, it doesn't really sit well with his big brotherly instincts and he wonders if, perhaps, Abby would slap him across the cheek and tell him he's too old for her daughter if she were here now.

Not that it matters, he muses, as the daughter in question is currently in substantial distress over that hot-tempered announcement that he intends to leave her to go on an expedition that he is gradually realising may not be entirely necessary. He grudgingly acknowledges to himself, in the quiet moments when Clarke is not looking, that he was a little too quick to jump to the idea that going to Polis was the only option available to him.

He's not surprised that Clarke is still on edge around him, all things considered, but he's pleased that they seem to be making progress. The conversation is flowing more naturally and they've started sharing smiles again. But every time they're in the same room – which is quite often, given they're trapped in the same bunker – he is struck again by just how much he misses being able to hold her when they watch a movie, or hug her good morning, or take her hand for no good reason at all. He saw how far she jumped, the other morning, in the kitchen, when he put a casual hand on her back, and he swears that he is never going to make her uncomfortable like that again, so he'll keep his distance until she shows him he's allowed to close the space between them. If that day ever comes, that is. He can only live in hope.

And then, at the very bottom of the list of things that it's actually worth worrying about right now, but rather near the top of the list of things he's worrying about anyway, is a train of thought that is entirely less than useful. Their conversation about his dropship days, and his rusty attempts at compliments, have brought to mind his rather selfish behaviour when they first landed on Earth, and although he's not proud of taking a string of girls his sister's age to his bed as if they meant nothing to him, he knows that Clarke knows about it and frankly couldn't care less. He was a different person then, in so many ways, that it hardly seems to count. He's pretty sure, though, that she doesn't know about Raven, and somehow he thinks that poor decision would be more likely to make her uncomfortable. Hell, it makes him uncomfortable, just thinking about it. At least he doesn't need to waste time and energy wondering when he stopped being that man, why he's so out of practice with his compliments, because he knows the answer to that lies with the woman sitting opposite him, playing listlessly with her pasta.

He's being a terrible dinner companion, wrapped up in his own concerns like this, but it hardly seems to matter. Even if he were to cultivate the most fascinating conversation of his life, he's pretty sure she'd run away to an early night the moment she put her fork down. At that thought, his mood for the evening completely sours. How is he supposed to make things right with her when she can't even bear to be in his company? He stabs a piece of pasta with a violence which would be appropriate if it had done him some great personal wrong, and bides his time until she excuses herself.

"I'll just do the dishes and be on my way to bed, then." There it is, he thinks with some bitterness, even sooner than expected.

"If that's what you want." He sounds beaten even to his own ears.

He stews in his frustration for more hours than he cares to count, occupying himself with game after game of solitaire and reflecting that the world's loneliest card game is not how he wants to spend his remaining month or so sharing a home with this woman it turns out he loves. Even if this is all the time they have together before he sabotages their relationship completely by going off on his own, he could at least spend it better than this, he thinks. He wants to be able to look back on these days, if he ends up in the middle of a desert sandstorm on his own, and know that he tried, that they had some good times, that she knew how much he cared about her. And he's not going to achieve any of those things stacking cards in neat piles alone.

Tomorrow, it seems, he is going to need a plan.

…...

Bellamy thinks his plan is a good one, but he still finds himself feeling unaccountably nervous the next day. He's driven himself mad all morning trying to read her mood without any success at all to speak of. He doesn't know what to make of breakfast – he thought he was getting the silent treatment, and had almost convinced himself that the plan was a terrible idea and his chance of success was less than zero, when out of the blue she said that she'd done a drawing of Octavia chasing butterflies when they first landed and would he like to see it.

Of course, he said yes.

But then he went and screwed up by asking her if he could flip through the rest of the sketchbook, and she said no and maybe later and looked all uncomfortable and disappeared to put it back in her room straight after breakfast.

So that is how he finds himself now sitting in the lab, while she is at her desk on the other side of the room, trying his hardest to focus on the words in front of him for longer than three minutes at a time without peeking up to look at her. He's still desperately searching for clues as to the likely success of tonight's plan and, if he's being truly honest, he also can't entirely resist smiling at the sight of her safe, and more or less well, and here with him.

The next time he looks up, she's already looking back at him. He panics and feels his face grow warm as he returns his gave to the page in front of him.

This is all rather silly, he thinks, in a moment of frustration. Instead of sitting next to each other while they work on what is, actually, the same project, they're stealing glances at each other like children. Bellamy is embarrassed to be behaving like a teenager with a crush, because actually, he's a man in his twenties, who can lead armies. Or, at least, rabbles of juvenile criminals.

Perhaps the crush bit isn't so far off the mark, though.

…...

Clarke isn't sure why Bellamy has been looking at her weirdly all day and it's beginning to make her rather anxious. Has he perhaps definitively made the decision to go to Polis, and is trying to decide the best way and time to tell her? Maybe he's worked out why she's been so committed to her workouts for the last few days, and wants to confront her about it. Or maybe it's something altogether more petty and she just has ink on her face. No, she's pretty sure it's not that last one. She went for a bathroom break about an hour ago specifically to check there was nothing obviously out of place in her appearance that could be causing all this furtive glancing.

As they sit down to a supper of some kind of vegetable stew she's becoming ever more convinced that the look on his face is one of apprehension. Probably a decision about Polis, then, she reckons, and suddenly she is overwhelmed by a desire to talk, for as long as possible, about literally anything else, and postpone the moment when he will break her heart once and for all.

"I don't think this is the greatest of the many great ration pack suppers we've had." She indicates the brown sludge in front of her. "No disrespect to the chef, of course, I just think it's not very inspiring."

"You expect your supper to be inspiring?" He quirks an eyebrow at the idea.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah. So, listen, I wanted to -"

"In fact," she interrupts him, "I think that the cheese and carrot pasta was possibly my favourite to date. An odd concept, but surprisingly moreish."

"That's great, but -"

"Which do you prefer out of soup or rice?" She's aware that she is starting to sound desperate now, but that's because she is, in fact, desperate not to hear him say again that he is leaving her.

"I have no idea. Clarke, why are you being so weird?"

"Why are you being so weird? You've been sending me these odd looks all day."

"If you give me a minute I'll explain." He still looks nervous, and it doesn't make her feel any better.

"I'm not sure I want you to. I have a feeling it's going to be bad news. In fact, I know it's going to be bad news, so please let's just keep discussing ration pack suppers and pretending everything's fine." She can feel her words running away with her, and she almost doesn't hear the rather calmer contribution he makes next.

"It's really not bad news, Clarke."

"It's not?" She mustn't let herself get her hopes up, not yet.

"Not even vaguely. I just... I wondered if you wanted to stay for a little while after supper to play chess?" He gets the words out in a rush, and she feels the ground fall away beneath her feet just a little. He's been sending her weird looks and growing increasingly nervous all day because he intended to invite her to play chess?

"You did? But you hate chess."

"I just thought it might be a nice idea." He sounds defensive, and won't meet her eye, and she gets the sense that this is actually incredibly important to him. "And I'd lose so quickly that you'd still get your early night."

"OK."

"OK? You'll beat me at chess after supper?" The eagerness in his voice is almost desperate, almost painful, and she strives to inject some levity into her tone as she replies.

"I expect so, yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	17. Chapter seventeen

As it turns out, Clarke beats Bellamy even more quickly than last time, because he finds that he is too busy smiling from ear to ear to actually concentrate on the game. Somehow this time just hanging out with her seems even more precious after the awkwardness and cold silence of recent days. Unfortunately, when it becomes clear that he has lost, he finds himself seeing the flaw in his plan. The happier he is about playing chess with her, the less he pays attention, and therefore the quicker he loses, and therefore the sooner she'll go to bed.

He knew something was bound to go wrong.

"That was pitiful." Clarke teases, her broad grin implying that she doesn't particularly mind. "No offence, of course." She adds as an afterthought, and he laughs out loud.

"It was. I'm not even going to deny it." He runs a hand through his hair in exasperation, and thinks he catches her eyes following the path of his fingers. Maybe it's just a trick of the light.

"Probably for the best. I'd judge you if you did."

"As opposed to judging me for being utterly hopeless at this in the first place."

"Fair point."

"Another game?" He really wants the answer to be yes, and bites his lip nervously as he waits for her response.

"Why not? I think I might have to start coaching you on how to be less awful."

"I wouldn't object. It'd be good to actually be able to offer you a bit of a challenge some time in the next five years." He should not have said that, he thinks, because that sounds a lot like an implication that he's intending to spend the next five years with her, and they're not quite there, yet, for all that they're giggling over chess.

"Yeah. That'd be nice." She offers in a neutral tone. "So, it's your move first. Maybe do something less absurdly predictable this time?"

In response, he moves a knight forward, and she bursts out laughing.

"Well. I guess that's one way to be unpredictable. What, exactly, are you hoping to achieve by that?"

"I made you laugh, didn't I? I call that a success for this evening's entertainment."

…...

Emori reckons she has maybe ten minutes until Raven will show up to insist that she goes to eat food or drink water or look after herself in some other way. Her new friend has become frustratingly motherly since John fell sick at breakfast yesterday, and she knows that it's just her way of showing concern, but it's beginning to grate on her. She can't just leave this man who has turned her world upside down, now when he's on death's door, for something as petty as supper. It would be such a disservice, such poor loyalty, when she thinks of all the hope and joy John Murphy has brought into her life.

A funny thought, that. She's pretty sure he would laugh, long and hard, if he heard her suggesting that he might be associated with hope and joy. But that's what he's been, to her, ever since he showed her that she deserved better than robbing people in the desert and serving that creepy bitch in the red dress. So now that he's lying here, hopeless, in a coma, she needs to be here to bring him hope in turn. Even though he is, as far as anyone can tell, completely out of it, she likes to think that he knows she's there.

She hears footsteps in the corridor. It seems that Raven is early.

"Hey. I've learnt from my mistakes – thought I'd bring supper to you today." She walks into the room, holding out a ration bar and a cup of water.

"Thanks." She reaches out to take the items, relieved to be spared Raven's attempts to chase her towards the dining room.

"How is he?" Emori has been pleasantly surprised by all the concern their crewmates have shown since John passed out. Raven and Monty, she supposes, are not exactly shocking, but it's been interesting to see that even Echo has dropped by a couple of times.

"No different, as far as I can tell. Still breathing, pulse slow but regular." She tries to keep it calm and factual, but she can feel her emotions trying to get the better of her.

"I wish Clarke was here. She'd know what to do. I mean, I wish she was here for other reasons too. I wish she was here because then she wouldn't be dead." Raven sounds bitter, but Emori wonders how much of that comes from the effort of holding back tears.

"I'm still pretty sure she's not dead, Raven. If any two people can survive the end of the world together, it's those two."

"I don't want to get my hopes up."

"No, I know how you feel." She gestures to where John lies on the bed.

"I reckon he'll be OK, Emori. Honestly. He's a survivor, that one. And realistically, I suspect if he was going to get any worse it would have happened by now."

"I hope you're right."

"I usually am. I have to go check in with Monty, he's still trying to work out what was wrong with that batch of algae. I'll see you tomorrow if not before, OK? Look after yourself too, you'll be no good to him exhausted."

"Thanks, Raven. For supper and the chat."

"No problem. That's what friends are for." That statement on its own is surprising enough, Emori thinks, but then Raven shocks her further by reaching out to engulf her in a hug. This is, it seems, what having friends is like. People to look out for you when the going gets tough, hug you when you're having a bad day.

It really is amazing how much John Murphy's existence has changed her life.

…...

He loses at chess twice more before Clarke calls it a night. He likes to think she does so reluctantly, but it's too soon to go that far, perhaps. Either way, he certainly isn't deluding himself by believing that she actually enjoyed the evening – he hasn't heard her laugh so much in weeks. Maybe he should have volunteered to lose at chess sooner.

He only reads for a couple of hours before heading to bed himself, and he thinks that's something of a post-Disunity-Day record. In a mad fit of enthusiasm, he locates clean sweatpants to sleep in, and resolves to put the old pair in the laundry. There's one point where he even catches himself humming as he goes to brush his teeth, and really, that does seem like a sign that things are getting a little out of hand. It's not exactly like they kissed, or anything. They literally just played chess together for forty minutes. He needs to keep his feet on the ground.

Well, it seems that first he needs to leap out of bed and bounce down the stairs to plan a celebratory breakfast of pancakes and tinned fruit.

But after that, he'll get his feet back on the ground. Definitely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	18. Chapter eighteen

The first nightmare brings his feet hurtling back to the ground with a rather abrupt crunch. Because there's Clarke, falling into that pit again, dying and screaming and leaving him destined never to get to know her, again. He rather hoped that this evening's chess might chase away this particular recurring horror, but it seems it takes more than forty minutes of teasing and laughter to convince his subconscious that he isn't a monster to be even considering leaving her. He briefly acknowledges his own use of the word consider. It seems he is no longer entirely intending.

The next nightmare is even worse. There's Octavia, beneath the floor, while guards swarm their apartment like ants, and somehow that morphs into eighteen year old Octavia, beneath the ground, in a bunker crawling with hostiles, and then, of course, she's dead in a hole in the ground and Clarke's dead in a hole in the ground and why, oh why, is everyone he loves always dead in a hole in the ground whenever he closes his eyes?

So then he gives up on sleep, at least for a while, in favour of staring at the ceiling and fretting about the fact that his immediate future involves an impossible decision and the necessity of extracting some bone marrow from Clarke and then quite possibly – although perhaps not probably - wandering around a desert alone, because although none of these things are much of an improvement on his nightmares, they are at least marginally less horrific.

But then sleep creeps up on him again, as sleep is wont to do, and when he next screams himself awake at the sight of Clarke's mangled body lying in that pit and the clock by his bed reads 4am he can already hear Clarke working out next door and he realises that, actually, he is unlikely to have a use for celebratory pancakes and tinned fruit any time soon after all.

…...

Clarke seriously contemplates going to check on Bellamy when she hears the scream. It's what she'd have done a fortnight ago, after all. And it makes her heart do a bit of a strangled skydive to hear him in such pain, because she'd take it all away from him in a moment, if she could.

But she can't. She knows, because she's tried. She's put her offer to help out there, and he's not taken her up on it in the days since she invited him to practise forgiving himself, and if he's going to insist on keeping his emotional struggles hidden from her she can't think that he'd thank her if she ran into his bedroom in the middle of the night and asked pointed questions about the nightmares he is evidently having.

Even so, it's almost unbearable to just sit here and listen to him falling apart.

She blocks it out and struggles on, because she needs to get the hang of this whole strength lark if she's going to manage out there alone with an injured hip. Not to mention, she is even more motivated to roll out her plan now that Bellamy has managed to gather the courage to invite her to that lovely chess session of yesterday. She reckons it's her turn to work on the bridge between them next. Hours pass, and she catches the idle thought that she'd probably be quite proud of her progress, if she weren't so busy losing herself in anxiety about all the problems she wishes she could solve but is powerless even to attempt to mitigate.

By the time she hears him on the stairs, she is exhausted, and more than happy to make her way to the shower and then downstairs. He probably won't have finished cooking yet, and normally she hides upstairs until she thinks breakfast might be almost ready, but this morning she is feeling a very tiny bit brave, and some relaxed jazz soundtrack is welcoming her downstairs.

"Morning." She offers, walking carefully into the kitchen. Perhaps, she wonders, this might in fact count as waddling. Her muscles do not enjoy these sleepless nights and the extra long workout sessions they bring.

"Morning." He turns to smile at her, then frowns when he sees her awkward gait. "Are you OK?"

"Long workout this morning. I couldn't sleep." She admits.

"I noticed. Me neither." His eyes are fixed on their breakfast as he speaks.

"I noticed that, too. Want to talk about it?" She figures she may as well give him the chance to ask for her help.

"Not really, you?" He pushes the conversation back to her, as she could have guessed he would.

"Not really." Perhaps they're not so different after all, she reflects.

"We're not very good at looking after each other, are we?" There's a wry twist to his mouth as he asks.

"I think actually, we're not very good at letting ourselves be looked after." She smiles sadly at the thought, and the silence hangs in the air for a moment until he surprises her.

"OK. So, I'll start having a go at that, then. I have nightmares where you I let you die. In that pit with the spikes, back when we first met. And that sucks, because then I never get to know how awesome you are, or how awesome we are together. Also nightmares where Octavia dies, those suck for reasons that I guess are pretty obvious."

"I don't have nightmares. I just worry, a lot, about everything. I basically panic all night. Like you said, sucks for reasons that are pretty obvious."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't think so, but I think I'm pleased we talked about it. You?"

"Likewise. Thanks. Porridge?" He offers her a bowl, and she thanks any divinity that might be up there for the quiet and sincere support of this wonderful man.

…...

He thinks he feels better for having got a brief summary of his sleepless nights off his chest, and heard what's been troubling Clarke as well, but he's not entirely sure. It makes him feel rather young, and vulnerable, to invite someone else to share some of his emotional burden. He's not sure he's ever had a conversation like that, those few terrifying sentences, with any other human being, even his mother.

He's beyond grateful for the way she doesn't make it into a big deal. No matter how many times the world might end around them or between them, she's still that same woman who gave him the gift of forgiveness while he wept on the forest floor then followed him back to camp for business as usual. So it is that today she just accepts her bowl of breakfast and gets on with confirming their plans for the day.

"I'm guessing you still have some stuff to do on project nightblood? I've certainly got plenty more to work through there."

"Yeah, enough to do for a few more days at least."

"Great. So, nightblood, then I guess you'll go do some pressups, then supper, then your next chess lesson?"

"Sounds good." He's trying to keep his cool at her suggestion that she'd like to play chess again, and he manages to repress the overexcited smile that threatens to tear his face in two, but he's pretty sure she can still read his excessive enthusiasm in his eyes. She's always been a little too good at understanding him, after all.

…...

"So, what's the objective of this evening's lesson?" He asks her over cheese and carrot pasta that evening.

"The objective?" Her eyebrows convey rather clearly, she hopes, that she thinks he's being a bit of a nerd again.

"Yeah. The objective. You know, the point. What am I supposed to learn today?"

"How to be marginally less terrible at chess?"

"You're not a very good teacher, are you?" He teases, and she can't resist grinning a little in return.

"You don't exactly give me much to work with." She fires straight back at him.

"Maybe I should teach you how to cook in revenge." He suggests, and she thinks he is not entirely joking. A beautiful scene is playing out in her imagination, in which they're singing along to Don't Stop Me Now while pasta burns, unheeded, in the background.

"That would backfire, you'd end up eating disgusting food." She points out.

"No, I'd plan better than that. I could teach you how to cook next soup night." He suggests, visibly warming to his theme. "That way we can each cook our own."

"That actually sounds quite fun." She risks a shy smile right into his eyes, and he grins back, and his still-damp-from-his-post-workout-shower curls are tumbling over his forehead, and she feels her heart do that funny melty thing for the first time since that horrific argument.

"Of course it'll be fun. I suggested it, and we all know I'm better at fun than you."

"I'm going to rise above that comment, and instead thank you for cooking such a tasty supper."

"I seem to remember cheese and inexplicable carrot pasta is your favourite."

"It is. Thanks."

"Are we going to sit here staring at our empty bowls all night, or are you going to wash up and then beat me at chess?" She laughs at his words, but then he reaches out to stack her bowl with his, carefully repositioning his hand to avoid touching hers, and at that she feels her heart freeze, at least a little, all over again.

…...

They play three matches again that evening, and Bellamy loses every single one, but he cannot bring himself to care. Perhaps, he thinks, this is why he is making so little progress with his chess. Perhaps he is lacking a little motivation, as he enjoys the company more than he minds about the outcome of the game.

The following evening they lose track of time a bit, or maybe they're both too busy laughing at Clarke's poor impressions of Thelonius Jaha trying to give her unsolicited advice on her chess tactics when she was a kid, or maybe they just both want to stay. Either way, they play five games, and between that and the fact that he's become marginally less hopeless at this activity and Clarke's actually beginning to have to think about what she's doing, two hours pass and they're somehow still at the table.

By the end of the week, it's no longer a surprise when they spend hours over chess in the evening. This hobby has quickly and firmly established a place for itself at the heart of their routine, for all that he remains largely inept at it, and he's not sure why he thought it was such a waste of time when they first found themselves here.

Oh, yes, he remembers now. It's because she was actually speaking cheerfully to him outside of chess back then. They had a relationship that in fact extended beyond this table and these little black and white squares and cartoonish pieces. She was, he seems to recall, at least a little in love with him. This happy daily bubble of chess-based domesticity has allowed him to pretend almost too successfully, over the last week, that there is no monumental decision looming over him, casting an oppressive shadow over their every other interaction. That he doesn't still catch her tearing up for no apparent reason at 2pm while they sit at opposite sides of the lab. That she hasn't been up and tormenting herself in what passes for a gym before 5am every day this week.

He heaves a sigh and brings his attention back to the chess board that lies between them. The evening is drawing on, and she has expressed her intention her to call it a night at the end of this game.

"There's no need to sigh quite so loudly." She interrupts his thoughts. "You're actually doing quite well."

"Always the tone of surprise." He teases in reply.

"Isn't that a quote from some old Earth book?"

"I must be rubbing off on you." He grins, and she smiles in return, and leans back in her chair looking for all the world as if she is actually happy.

They exchange the next couple of moves in silence, and then -

"I did not see that coming." She's frowning at the board, where he's just taken her queen. "That was good, Bellamy. That was really good."

"I have a good teacher."

"Looks like I'm in need of some lessons myself." She moves a piece, but she's shaking her head as if she can already see where this is going. "You do, in fact, appear to be winning."

"I'm told that it's not easy to judge that from the number of pieces on the board. Losing your queen, for example, does not necessarily mean you're going to lose the game."

"Stop repeating my own lectures back at me and get on with putting me out of my misery." She's trying to laugh at the situation, he can tell, but she's never been a good loser.

"I'm trying, I promise. Just because I made a couple of good moves does not mean I've suddenly become some chess genius." He has, though, become quite competent, he reflects, as he takes her second castle. She has somehow found herself with only a king and a rather modest posse of pawns remaining.

"I can only plead that I'm clearly not concentrating tonight." She offers, moving one of her pawns ineffectually forward.

"Yes, I hear I can be very distracting." She snorts at that, as he intended she should. "I think that's checkmate." He wants it to be a statement, but it's hardly surprising that it comes out as more of a question.

"You think?"

"You're the expert."

"It is checkmate. I was sort of hoping you wouldn't notice and I'd get to survive a bit longer."

"To what end?" He asks, starting to put the pieces away. "It's not like you were going to magically come back from that."

"Fair point. What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm tidying up." He states, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. "You always tidied up out of kindness when I lost, I'm returning the favour."

"It wasn't sympathy tidying, I just figured it was my job to put the pieces away." She reaches out for the knight he is holding, but he doesn't give it up.

"Why should it be your job? We both know I'm not one to expect the woman to do the tidying."

"Please, obviously not." She rolls her eyes at that. "You cook every meal, the least I can do is put some chess pieces away." With that, she reaches out and snatches the board away from him back to her side of the table. "Now give me that knight." She demands.

"No." He insists, keeping hold of the piece and meeting her eyes, challenging her to find a way around this. He will help put the chess pieces away, because that is what a magnanimous victor should do.

He is caught utterly by surprise when her hand shoots out across the table to wrap around his where he is still holding the knight. He feels his breath stick in his throat at this, starved for physical contact as he has been of late, and he could swear that her hand is staying put for longer than it strictly needs to, that she's entwining her fingers with his more than is absolutely necessary.

"I think the solution to this is obvious." He states, relinquishing the piece at last and allowing her to retreat with her prize to her side of the table. "You need to learn to cook. Then we can both take turns tidying up, and both take turns cooking."

"You did suggest we could share the cooking next soup night." She reminds him. He's beyond excited that she has remembered that, because he knew as soon as he suggested it that it was basically his idea of the most fun it was possible to have, but he didn't want to seem too keen for fear of it being, perhaps, more exciting to him than it was to her. He thinks he's probably grinning like a bit of an idiot, but she's putting the chess back on the shelf with her back to him so he hopes he'll get away with it.

"So, soup tomorrow then?" He asks, as she makes her way towards the door.

"Definitely." She agrees. Presuming that's the end of conversation for the evening, he heads for the bookcase to select some reading material for the next couple of hours, but pauses when he realises that she is still standing in the doorway, looking rather foolish as she seems to be casting about for something to say.

"Goodnight." She offers in the end, and he's not sure why that required so much premeditation. "Sleep well. I hope that the nightmares aren't too awful tonight." She gives a gentle smile and he really really wants to pull her into his arms, and whisper his goodnight wishes into her hair, but that seems a little too large of a leap - a tussle over a chess piece is not quite a heartfelt hug - so he goes for a different approach.

"I hope you sleep well too." He replies. "And I hope that, you know, the panic stays at bay a bit. I know you're not such an old Earth culture nerd as me, but I wondered if you wanted to take this book? It was published as a kids' book at the end of the twentieth century, but in the end loads of adults got into it too. There was a whole series, seven books, they were massive bestsellers. It's where that quote from earlier comes from. And... that's probably more information than you needed." He's very aware he has ended up babbling. "Anyway, I just thought, it might take your mind off things, and it's kind of a gift apart from the fact that we don't technically own any of this stuff, and – yeah."

"Thanks, Bellamy. That's really thoughtful." She reaches out to take it, and this time her fingers definitely wrap around his for longer than is strictly necessary, and when he processes this piece of information he's pretty sure that his heart does a moderately sized victory dance inside his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	19. Chapter nineteen

Emori never realised how hard it could be, loving someone who was not dead. Yet.

She knows, and has known for longer than she cares to remember, what it is like to watch her parents die. She knows, too, from more recent memory, what it is like to lose a brother. And all of those things were difficult – and still are difficult, on bad days – yet they pale into insignificance compared with sitting here watching the man she loves lie in a bed, pale faced, motionless, and looking for all the world like a vegetable instead of a living human being.

Two very different schools of thought seem to be waging a war within her. With every day that passes, she grows more despairing of the idea that he will ever wake up, that he will ever make her laugh of make her cringe in exasperation again. But, on the other hand, she's been wondering over the last forty-eight hours or so if, maybe, there might be just a little more colour in his face. And she thinks she might not be entirely delusional for clinging to this, because their friends continue to visit often and sympathetically, and every single one of them tells her that they can see some improvement.

At least if this is a delusion, they're all delusional together.

She straightens the bedclothes, because she likes to have something to do, and then she checks that his pulse is still, well, there.

To her surprise, it's rather elevated compared to this morning. She's not sure whether this is a good thing or not, because she knows less than nothing about medical matters, so she decides she should go look for Raven. It's not like her friend is exactly a qualified doctor herself, but she is basically a genius and two heads are always better than one, she's heard.

"John? I'm just going to go look for Raven." She's not sure why she feels the need to provide him with this running commentary on her actions, but she finds it somehow calming. "Nothing to worry about, I just want to talk to her about how you're getting on. I'll be back soon, OK?" She takes the water glass from the side of the bed, intending to refill that while she's at it.

"Do what you like. Don't mind me." She drops the glass in shock and it shatters into many many pieces that will undoubtedly take quite some time to clear up, but she is beyond caring. Because she knows that voice, the shades of sarcasm that light up the room even when he's saying only seven little words, and he's back, and clearly very much back to being his usual self into the bargain. She looks up, and his eyes are open, and he's smiling that John Murphy smile that she's missed so very much, and in a most un-Emori-like way she finds that she feels utterly compelled to burst into tears.

"I thought you were going to die." She's sobbing and almost incoherent, but it seems he must have got the gist of her words as he's struggling to sit up and reach out towards her.

"It'd take more than whatever the hell that was to kill a cockroach like me. I'm going to be fine, I promise. Come here." He's holding out his arms to her, and she collapses into them.

She should probably find Raven after all, albeit for a slightly different reason to the one that she originally had in mind. She should probably find everyone, and tell them all the news, and she should probably welcome them joyfully into the room so that they can share a relieved reunion.

But all those things can wait, she decides, at least until she stops weeping into his shoulder.

…...

Bellamy wakes up to silence, and it worries him. He hasn't woken up to silence for a good couple of weeks, because he's been waking up to the sound of Clarke working out instead of sleeping, and to be fair that was worrying enough, because of the frighteningly driven way she was going about it, every single morning, for hours on end.

But the lack of it worries him even more.

He should have known that she was heading for burnout, or illness, or some other thing that has stopped her from keeping to her routine this morning. It couldn't be healthy, sleeping so little, and being so anxious, and spending quite so long in the gym, and he's been there all along, so he should have been able to read the signs, and he should have said something, or done something, or somehow prevented whatever it is that has gone wrong now.

He checks on the room that has become the gym anyway, just to be sure – perhaps she's just having a long rest between sets, or has discovered the joys of yoga – but she's not there. Perhaps she's already finished, then, and is sitting downstairs reading about nightblood, or enjoying old Earth literature, or playing chess against herself. He checks, carefully, but she isn't in any of those places either, and with a rising sense of panic he concludes that, therefore, she must be ill, and bedridden, and now he needs to decide what to do about this. He's surely allowed to knock on the door, and maybe go in and check on her, if he's worried about her health and wellbeing? Surely that does not cross any of these cold lines that still seem to keep getting in between them and tripping him up at every turn?

Before he can talk himself out of it, he finds himself at the door of her room, knocking softly.

"Yes?" Thank goodness, she must at least be conscious.

"Clarke?"

"Yes? Who else would this be?"

"Are you OK?"

"Yes? Are you?" Dammit, clearly he isn't doing a very good job of sounding calm and in control of the situation. If she is ill, he's not going to be a lot of help to her like this.

"Yes. Of course. Are you sure you're OK?"

"Bellamy? Come in."

"You sure?"

"Yes." She sounds impatient now. What if something's wrong? "Get in here."

He opens the door and cautiously curls his head around it.

"Thanks." She's smiling, and she doesn't look seriously ill, but she's still in bed a good four hours after her normal time and this is still something of a concern. "I felt stupid talking to you through the door like that." What?

"Are you OK? Can I get you anything? Are you feeling OK?" It would appear he's prone to repeating himself when he's concerned.

"I'm fine. Why do you keep asking? You seem really upset, what's wrong?" Her brow is furrowed in confusion, and he has to admit that she looks and sounds absolutely well after all.

"You didn't get up to do your workout this morning. I thought you must be sick or exhausted or something." He explains himself, and she looks rather bemused. "I guess I worried over nothing." He tries to give a nonchalant shrug, but he's still coming down from the state of panic he's been in since waking up.

"I'm so sorry, Bellamy. It never even occurred to me that you might notice and think it meant something was wrong. I should have thought to let you know I was fine."

"Not your fault. I should probably try to be less prone to panicking about you."

"I decided that it was endearing a long time ago." She's smiling at him and in a sudden rush of confidence he takes a couple of steps forward and seats himself tentatively on the end of her bed. "All the same, I really am sorry for making you worry. I've just been having a lie in and reading that book you gave me last night." She gestures to the worn paperback she must have put aside when the stilted conversation through the door began.

"I knew you'd enjoy it."

"It's great. I'm guessing Ron and Hermione get together?"

"How did you get that from, what, the first half of the first book?"

"Please. Why else make such a big deal about how much they rub each other up the wrong way? They remind me of some other folks I know." She quirks an eyebrow at him, her face slightly pink, and he feels himself relax completely after his earlier scare. She's well, and she's teasing him, and he's sitting on the end of her bed while she compares them to a wonderfully dysfunctional fictional couple, and in this moment, he decides that they really are going to end up finding their way back to each other eventually. He will make sure of it.

"You may have a point there." He grins at her. "Feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but is there a reason you chose this morning for an unexpected lie in?"

"Yeah." She looks suddenly nervous, and he leans towards her, keen to pick up her next words. "I was wondering if I could join you for your gym session today? Could you teach me that nauseatingly impossible Ark guard routine?" He's about to agree enthusiastically when she rattles on, stopping him. "I know it's difficult but I've been working out a lot recently and I think I could manage it, or at least give it a go, and if it's a disaster we don't have to do it again, but I thought I'd like to have a go at the challenge, and, well, maybe it would also be nice to hang out together? But, of course, if -"

"Clarke. Stop. I'd really like that. And I'm sure you'll smash it."

"You think it'll be OK?"

"I think you'll do great. Like you said, you've been training a lot recently. And it'll be nice to hang out with you anyway." He needs to reassure her, both about her own ability and about how much he's looking forward to this. Because it might not be I love you and it's not I forgive you and it isn't even I miss you, not really, nor any of the other things he's been daydreaming of hearing her say these last weeks, or saying to her in return. But it is quite something, all the same, and it's more than enough to be getting on with.

In another world, in another lifetime, he thinks he might even find himself saying it's a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	20. Chapter twenty

By the time they both make it downstairs, and breakfast is eaten, and the dishes are done, she is in a better mood than she has experienced in quite some time. Everything about the world looks sunnier, somehow, for all that she's stuck in a hole in the ground, when the day starts with Bellamy sat at the foot of her bed telling her that she's awesome. She knows that their situation is a complicated one, that his loyalty to his sister is one of his defining qualities – and if she's being honest his loyalty is one of the most lovable things about him, so she can't really hold it against him just because it's inconvenient to her on this particular occasion – so there's every chance, really, that he'll still decide to go his own way when this small bubble of peace is over. But, in the mean time, she wants to make the most of this home they have together. She wants them to laugh, and play chess, and eat personalised soup.

But, she has to admit, she's still pretty frightened that she'll get hurt if she lets him get too close again.

Pushing that thought aside through sheer force of will, she enters the lab in front of Bellamy and gestures to the desk adjacent to the one she has claimed as her own.

"Do you think we've spent enough time sitting on opposite sides of the room now? Do you maybe want to make use of this perfectly good desk?" She's looking at her hands, not his face, because she doesn't know what she'll do if he says no.

"You know, it does seem like a good desk." He takes a seat, and with it her olive branch, and another couple of bricks crumble to dust and fall from the wall she has built around her heart.

It turns out, as the day skips along, that there was in fact one advantage to Bellamy stewing in awkward silence on the far side of the lab. Now that he is right here, he seems to be finding it a little too convenient to ask her questions every five minutes. She thinks this is reassuring, because after all the man is going to be conducting a substantial medical procedure on her in the not too distant future and she wants him to know exactly what he's doing, but she's a bit too busy being distinctly concerned that he never asked about any of these things until now. Not to mention the fact that she can barely think straight with his constant interruptions.

"What do I do with the bone marrow once it's in the syringe?" He's asking now. "Do I just give it to you, or am I supposed to put it in a test tube or something?"

"You just give it to me. I'll be awake, remember? That's literally the point, is that you can just give it straight to me without having to worry yourself about test tubes." She reminds him briskly. OK, perhaps briskly is a bit mild. Perhaps impatiently would be more accurate.

"Oh. Right. Sorry." He mumbles, and returns to staring at the screen in front of him.

"It's OK." She sighs. "You're allowed to ask questions. It's just – you're really pretty bright, so why this sudden obsession with asking things you already know the answer to?" There's a pause and then, suddenly, the answer is spilling out of him all at once and she is scooting her desk chair closer to him, concern knotting her brow.

"Because I'm absolutely scared witless that I'm going to do something wrong. Because I need to go over the plan dozens of times in order to be even vaguely confident that I'm going to do it right and you're going to be OK. And because I've been sitting on the other side of the room feeling like I couldn't tell you that or ask you any of these obvious questions for the last fortnight so excuse me if I'm making up for lost time today." She stares at him in silence for longer than she probably ought, simultaneously ecstatic that he's started opening up more easily and horrified that all of this has been eating away at him and she never even noticed.

"Bellamy. You are exceptional at doing terrifying things you think you don't know how to do. Turning a hundred teenage criminals into a functioning society whilst under attack from unexpected hostiles? Getting into Mount Weather and disabling their acid fog? Making up a plan as you went along to break into that tower and save me from ALIE? You've done harder things than this before, Bellamy, and I know you can do this, too. And apart from anything else, I'll be right there with you, every step of the way."

"Thanks, Clarke." He offers her a shaky smile. "I think I'm just a bit more confident with rifles than with syringes."

"Well, that's why we make the perfect team." With that, she squeezes his leg once, briefly, and scoots her desk chair back to its usual location. She doesn't hang around to see the look on his face, because she has the uncomfortable feeling that she might have said too much.

…...

Bellamy is not surprised that Clarke makes a success of the gym session that afternoon. If there's one thing he knows, it's that she has the sheer determination to make a success of anything she puts her mind to, and an hour of burpees and pushups and assorted other painfulness has surely got to be more straightforward than some of the other challenges she has faced on this inhospitable planet.

When they're done and are about to head to their rooms to get changed he offers her a high five and says "Nice job, Princess." And suddenly she's crying and he panics and thinks maybe he sounded patronising or undermining or like he hadn't thought she could do it, and nothing could be further from the truth or from his intentions. And then he realises that it's the first time he's called her that ridiculous nickname in weeks and he sort of wants to cry a bit too. And somehow it only gets worse when she brushes her hand over her eyes almost angrily, as if she can no longer bear to show weakness around him, or seek comfort from him, and that hurts, because he's pretty sure it didn't used to be this way. Following her cue, he leaves aside the crying, cursing himself for leaving her alone so often in the wake of Disunity Day and starting this trend. It seems that he has backed himself into a corner where she expects him to ignore her tears, so he lives up to her low expectations and changes the subject instead.

"I was thinking about putting a film on after supper, if you're interested?" He phrases it carefully, makes it clear to her that he is putting a film on rather than inviting her to a cosy movie night, with all of its implications of snuggles and warmth and running his hands through her hair.

"Sounds like a plan." Her tone is neutral, and she's still evidently fighting the tears, but she has at least agreed to the idea.

"Great. Are we still on for making soup together?"

"Yeah." She does crack a smile at that, albeit a slightly watery one, and he breathes a sigh of relief. "I'll be there as soon as I'm done in the shower."

…...

She practically runs to the sanctuary of the shower, and she's aware that she looks rather graceless in doing so, but she needs to finish crying and she's certainly not about to do so in front of him. She tells herself it's a good thing that he leaves her alone when she's upset, that it's a relief that he doesn't ask difficult questions, but she's not sure she has herself convinced.

She finds herself reflecting on the cliché of showers washing away sadness because frankly, it couldn't be further from the truth. It's not the water that brings the sunshine back into her mood, it's the sight of her bed, dent still in the duvet from where her day started out with a concerned Bellamy and a good-natured chat about her book. By the time she has put on clean clothes, and dried her hair, and gathered some sketching supplies because she doesn't know quite what to expect from this putting a film on, she is feeling a reinvigorated sense of optimism that she thinks not even her own terrible cooking will be able to destroy.

Bellamy has beaten her downstairs, but there is no music playing when she enters the kitchen. Instead, he seems preoccupied with arranging their soup packets neatly on the counter. He looks up when he hears her enter, biting his lip slightly.

"I'm sorry about just now. I didn't mean -"

"It's fine, Bellamy. Really. I wasn't upset because of... what you said. It's grown on me since our early days. I just got a bit emotional because it'd been a while since you last said it."

"In that case, I'll have to remember to call you "Princess" at least three times a day in future." She grins at that, and briefly toys with the idea of elbowing him in the ribs.

"Is there a reason there's no music?" She asks instead.

"I always seem to choose. I thought it might be your turn." He indicates the tablet that controls the sound system, sitting next to the soup packets. Of course, there is only one thing she can even consider playing right now. What else could be suitable for a day that started with such promise, and then involved smashing a tough workout, and marked her return to her proper status as his "Princess"?

Tonight, I'm gonna have myself a real good time...

He looks up in surprise as he recognises the song, and the sheer joy on his face is oddly reminiscent of that sketch she did at the beginning of their confinement here. He was, it seems, not expecting a dance party this evening.

"Are you going to stop gaping at some point and start singing?" She asks, and that is, it seems, all the cue he needs, to pick up his wooden spoon microphone and join in.

I'm a shooting star, leaping through the sky  
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity

Personally, those have always been her favourite lines, and she can't help feeling that it's all downhill from there. All the same, she supposes, there is something classic about this chorus, and she feels a good amount of nostalgia for the last time they sang it together.

Don't stop me now, I'm having such a good time  
I'm having a ball  
Don't stop me now

The next few minutes pass much as expected, with a great deal of tuneless singing and enough laughter to make her cheeks ache. By the time the song ends, and fades out to quiet, she acknowledges that no soup has been made, but she is equally certain that quite a lot of progress has.

"Sorry." She breaks the silence. "I should have set it to shuffle on to something else after."

"Probably just as well you didn't." He decides with a grin. "We'd never eat if you did. Now, are you going to learn how to make soup or what?"

"This is going to end badly. I'm telling you."

"Literally all you have to do is add boiling water to the dehydrated soup and then simmer until it goes pleasantly gloopy. I'm pretty sure even you can do this."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

She sets about following the instructions on the packet, and the occasional helpful hint from Bellamy. He's a mine of useful tips like that's boiling water, try not to scald us both and have you considered stirring it, Princess? Ten minutes later, she has a bowl of something that looks and smells suspiciously like tomato soup, and she's feeling disproportionately proud of herself. They sit down to eat, and she can't resist the urge to regale him with an endless commentary of aspects of her recent soup-making success which bring her particular pride, and he listens with a tolerant smile and it's not until about the fifth sentence that starts with and another thing that he finally loses the plot and interrupts her.

"I get it, Princess. You made instant soup. Now get over it." She throws half a cracker at him and gets on with her next comment regardless, and he catches and eats the cracker, so it seems everyone's a winner.

When supper is cleared away and he finally manages to get a word in edgewise, he insists that he ought to be the one to choose the film that evening.

"It's only fair." He tells her. "As recompense for that vicious attack with the salted cracker."

"You may choose the film." She agrees with a giggle. "But only because I like you, not because I'm feeling any remorse at all for the cracker incident."

He chooses some completely mind-numbingly boring superhero movie about a nerd who turns into a green monster, so she spends most of the night sketching pictures of the trees that surrounded their camp when they first landed. They sit as far away from each other as is possible on the sofa, and when she curls her legs up by her side about an hour in, her toes only just about brush his thigh. There is no running commentary, and no constant laughter, and he keeps his hands very much to himself.

It's still the best movie night they've shared in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	21. Chapter twenty one

It's the best movie night they've shared in weeks, but he does acknowledge that this is, at least in part, because it is the only movie night they've shared in weeks. All the same, he can't help the smile that breaks out over his face as he follows her slowly up the stairs to their respective bedrooms, because he's actually starting to believe that, at this rate, he might even sleep tonight. They say a slightly awkward goodnight, standing a resolute arm's length apart, but then she gives him a cheery little wave as she's closing her door that more than makes up for it.

He wonders if, perhaps, she might be just as relieved that normal service seems to be resuming as he is.

His optimism is, it turns out, not entirely misplaced, as he falls asleep almost the moment his head hits the pillow. Of course, a night free from bad dreams would be a little too much to hope for, but it is at least progress that she dies slightly less often in his subconscious tonight, and he awakes in the morning feeling positively refreshed. He feels like he ought to do something to celebrate the improvement in the atmosphere between them, to mark his successful attempt at going to bed at a reasonable time, to show his disproportionate joy to the universe, and he finds his thoughts returning to that packet of pancake mix and tin of peach slices that he threw back into the cupboard in a fit of frustration and anxiety the previous week. He recalls, too, the warmth with which she welcomed him to sit on the end of her bed and chat yesterday morning, and also the exhaustion with which she climbed the stairs, weary from that tough gym session.

And, really, once he's put all those puzzle pieces together, those puzzle pieces that are so much more joyful than the bean-based ones he used to torment himself with in the early hours, there is only one thing he can do.

He tiptoes past her door, unsure whether she's awake, and wanting neither to disturb her nor to spoil his attempt at a pleasant surprise. He reaches the kitchen, and makes up a couple of portions of pancake mix, and frowns slightly at the texture of it, but he reminds himself firmly that it's the thought that counts. An affectionate voice in the back of his head also whispers that it'll still be better than anything Clarke could ever cook for herself. And that if it's revolting, well, he still owes her for the cracker incident. He's very rarely made pancakes before, frivolous breakfasts being a luxury his mother could not often afford for them on the Ark, but it's not exactly a complicated premise and although the first couple don't look great he puts them on his plate and hides them under some peach slices. After some minutes and only a small cloud of concerning smoke he has two stacks of pancakes ready. He pours them a glass of water each and, balancing all of his burdens with considerable difficulty, he makes his way towards the stairs. He's on the third step when he realises he has forgotten to bring cutlery, so he walks precariously back to the kitchen, puts everything down, shoves some forks in his pocket with a certain amount of annoyance, and tries again. Eventually, he finds himself standing outside Clarke's door, and realises that the greatest challenge is yet to come. He either needs to knock on and then open the door with his hands full, or set their breakfast on the ground without spilling anything. Neither of these options is looking very plausible from where he's standing at the moment.

"Clarke?" He tries calling, because he's a feeling that just asking for help may be the best solution here.

"Yeah?"

"You awake?"

"Well I don't think I talk in my sleep, if that's what you're asking."

"Right, yeah. Could you open the door?"

"OK...?" She says it as if it's a question, and he hears footsteps before she opens the door, wearing nothing but an oversized T shirt that leaves more leg on show than he thinks can be good for the state of his sanity. "What's all this?" She distracts him from his staring to indicate the plates and glasses he is attempting to hold.

"This is breakfast." He states unnecessarily.

"Yes. I thought it might be. Why is it not grey and also why is it upstairs?"

"It's not grey because I made pancakes and tinned peaches. I thought it might make you happy to have something different for a change." He tries to shrug, but the topmost of the pancakes on the right hand stack starts sliding at the motion so he gives up on the idea. "And it's upstairs because you did a lot of squat jumps recently and I thought you might appreciate not having to get up and walk first thing in the morning. Although then I couldn't open the door because I had my hands full so you had to walk anyway." He explains apologetically.

She seems to have tears in her eyes, and he is feeling brave enough that he thinks he would actually reach out to give her a hug or at least put a hand on her shoulder were it not for the fact that his hands are still full of breakfast.

"Thank you." She says, voice shaking slightly. "Really. This is so sweet of you. I suppose I should probably take some of those things you're about to drop." She takes her plate and glass and puts them on her bedside cabinet, and puts the others on the floor near the corner of the bed he occupied yesterday morning. He's about to take the hint and sit down when he feels one arm wrap around him in an enthusiastic sort of side-hug. She pulls away again before he manages to gather his wits enough to hug her back, but he thinks he'll still be glowing for the rest of the day anyway. They sit on their opposite ends of the bed and start eating. He is disappointed to note that the pancakes at the bottom of his stack are now well and truly cold and soggy, an unfortunate but not unsurprising consequence of his inefficiency in getting breakfast to the day's designated dining room, but all the same it's certainly a vast improvement over porridge.

"These are so good." She mumbles, or at least, he thinks she does. It's quite hard to tell when she's virtually inhaling her food.

"I'm glad you're enjoying them. There's enough mix left for a couple more portions, I'll save them for another special occasion. Maybe the day we do the whole nightblood thing or something?"

"Sounds like a plan. I reckon that's maybe about a week away, based on how I'm getting on?"

"Sounds good. Please can I make a suggestion for today?"

"Sure."

"Can I suggest you don't try to do some crazy difficult workout today? Not because I want to be patronising, but because rest days are a sensible and healthy thing." He still remembers how scared he was yesterday morning when he thought she was ill from having pushed herself too hard. "Maybe we could do some stretching instead? Or maybe play chess?"

"Or both?" She offers, with a shy smile that, if he were feeling a bit more confident in the state of their relationship, he might be tempted to interpret as indicating that she wanted to spend more time with him.

"Both it is." He hastens to agree, and gets on with demolishing his pancakes.

…...

It turns out that nearly dying is a good way to learn that people care about you, Murphy thinks. OK, well, maybe not a good way, because the whole choking and feeling himself black out thing was quite frightening, and because it had evidently been pretty tough on the people around him. He's pretty sure Emori barely ate or slept the whole week he was in that coma. Still, it's quite an effective way of learning that people care about you. Monty has hugged him three times in the last twenty-four hours, which would be positively frightening if it weren't so damn heart-warming, and even Echo and Harper managed to get as far as seeming genuinely to have been worried about him. The prize for fussing over him like a mother hen, which he rather expected Emori to claim, is actually destined to go to Raven, it seems. Emori's always been a rather level-headed woman and he finds himself even more grateful for that now as her friend begins to yell at him for literally no reason.

"What on Earth do you think you're doing, Murphy?" She asks with considerable venom as he stands up from the chair he has been allocated, utterly bored of putting his feet up, and walks towards the bench the two women are working at.

"Helping, Raven. Contrary to popular belief I do sometimes dabble in doing something useful." He picks up a screwdriver and sets about faffing with the bench Monty wanted repairing for his algae farm.

"Sit down, you idiot. You almost died! And you've barely been awake a day. You mustn't overdo it." As Raven continues to express her concerns he catches Emori's eye over her shoulder and shoots her a can-you-believe-this-woman sort of a look. He's somewhat surprised to read in her expression that she's actually on Raven's side, after all.

"I don't think it takes that much physical strength to use a screwdriver, Reyes." He attempts to play it off in his normal way, but finds himself strangely moved that his girlfriend and the person he supposes is probably his best friend are so concerned for his welfare.

"And I don't think Monty needs that bench all that urgently." Emori joins in now. "I know you won't agree to go lie down, but can you at least sit? And not run around with scewdrivers?" Her tone holds the slightest hint of pleading and he knows there's no way he can go against her wishes when she's looking at him like this.

"OK." He puts the screwdriver down and holds up his hands in surrender. "You win. But I'm sitting right here." He resumes his allocated chair. "You're not getting rid of me that easily." He's spent quite enough time in his room of late, he thinks, and besides which, it would be a shame if these two got up to anything cool without him.

…...

Bellamy has clearly learnt his lesson from yesterday, Clarke thinks, as they sit in the lab at their adjacent desks and worry about nightblood in a companionable fashion. He no longer interrupts her when he has a question or a concern - he instead does this rather off-putting thing where he turns and just watches her until she gives in and asks what he wants. He's doing it now, she notes, she can see him out of the corner of her eye, utterly occupied by waiting patiently for her, his disconcertingly warm gaze fixed on her face.

"Yes?" She asks, turning to give him her full attention.

"Why have you given me this document about Luna's reaction to her radiation exposure? I guess they must be your mother's notes? Why do I need them?"

"I just gave them to you for the sake of completeness, really. I thought you might like to know what you can expect to happen to you, what your symptoms might be, how long it might take for you to start metabolising the radiation yourself. I thought you might find it reassuring."

"So you gave me a load of medical words I have no hope of understanding because you thought I might find it reassuring? I don't need a load of paperwork to feel reassured, Clarke. I trust you. If you say I'll be fine, then I'll be fine." He shrugs, as if trusting her is the most obvious thing in the world, and she finds herself blinking quite a lot.

"Come on." She decides on impulse, tugging at his sleeve. "We've done enough of this for today. Stretching and chess?"

"Stretching and chess." He confirms, and is perfectly willing to jump to his feet and follow her from the room.

It turns out that doing a stretching session with her currently-slightly-estranged-best-friend-in-whom-she-is-possibly-also-just-a-little-romantically-interested is a pretty awful experience all round, what with the amount of time everyone's limbs and buttocks spend very much on display. She thinks the only thing worse than watching Bellamy in a downward dog position on the other side of the room whilst trying to pretend her cheeks are not on fire is the knowledge that he, in turn, is unashamedly watching her too. On the other hand, it is hysterically funny, given how hopeless they both are at this, and when she overbalances and falls on her side for the third time during her attempt at some ridiculous dynamic hamstring stretch that involves standing on one leg like an oversized waterbird she allows herself to give way to the giggles.

"This is humiliating." She eventually manages to say more or less coherently from her position in a heap on the floor. "I would take a hundred burpees over this any day."

"I don't know." He gets out through his laughter. "I've been enjoying the view."

"Wow. Smooth."

"Always. Come on." He offers her a hand to help her up. "I think that's quite enough of that. Chess?"

They're still laughing at their incompetence as they set up the chessboard, and she can't resist teasing him for the fact he's little better than her at elegant flexibility when she's pretty sure the exercise regime he followed on the guard must have been pretty comprehensive. He concedes that, perhaps, he's a little out of practice, and perhaps more than a little out of practice at certain things he never liked anyway, and she allows herself to relax completely as the game begins.

They've each taken a couple of moves when he catches her by surprise and suddenly blurts out a question. "Do you think O will ever forgive me for Lincoln?" She is startled for a moment, because she'd sort of allowed herself to forget in the midst of all the loveliness that they hadn't quite worked through the whole forgiveness thing. Or the whole splitting up and going to Polis thing. Or anything, really. They haven't exactly fixed any of the problems, they've just got on with loving each other anyway.

"I think she already nearly has, Bellamy. Honestly. Yes, she loved him, and yes, he's dead. But you didn't know your actions would in any way enable that. You honestly thought you were doing the right thing by following Pike."

"I still can't believe I let him get to me."

"I can." She tells him honestly, and he looks at her with such sadness and regret that she wants to take it back, but she thinks that really, this needs saying. "I think it was a very Bellamy thing to do. Like I said on that day when you were supposed to get in the rocket, you act on your emotions rather than thinking things through. And, honestly, that's one of the wonderful and lovable things about you. But sometimes it also means you do things you're going to regret later on. As I said then, you're like the opposite of me, with my habit of being a bit of a heartless monster and then later regretting doing awful things for logical reasons." She's said more than she really meant to, put more of herself out there than she intended, but she thinks that's probably OK, because this is Bellamy, and if she is going to say too much to anyone, it had better be him.

"Thanks, Clarke. I guess I'd been a bit too busy beating myself up to look at it like that." He takes a deep breath before continuing. "For the record, I'm pretty sure you're not a heartless monster. I don't think acting on logic and having a heart are mutually exclusive. I think you're a pretty obvious example of that."

"Thank you." She smiles at him warmly. "What did I do to deserve you as the person I get to be stuck in this hole in the ground with?"

"Make me care about you enough to want to stay?"

There is no answer to that with which she can possibly articulate everything she is currently thinking, so she settles for taking his hand instead. "Thank you." She whispers urgently, and she's pretty sure he understands that it's a rather large and all-encompassing sort of a thank you.

He moves a bishop without appearing to think overmuch about it and goes back to practising forgiveness. "I'm sorry I locked you up and tried to betray you to Pike." He tells her, and she slightly wonders why he bothers, because obviously she already knew he was sorry about that.

"I'm sorry I had you locked up in that bunker and then threatened to shoot you."

"I wasn't surprised you couldn't go through with it. Evidence that you do, in fact, have a heart." He squeezes her hand.

She told herself she wasn't going to let him get to her again, she seems to remember. She's sure she had some idea that if he got too close it would hurt even more when he struck out for Polis alone, that keeping a healthy distance between the two of them was only sensible.

It seems it's a little too late for that, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	22. Chapter twenty two

Of course, Clarke wins the chess game, and Bellamy chuckles to himself at this evidence that his recent victory was, in fact, a complete fluke.

"What's so funny?" She asks, looking up from tidying away the pieces.

"Clearly I was less distracting tonight." He tells her, and she picks up on his reference and laughs in turn.

"Supper?" She asks, when she has finished giggling.

"Supper." He agrees, and heads for the kitchen.

He's half expecting her to find something else to do, like draw a tree or research nightblood, or at the very least something to pretend to do, because somehow all of this friendliness has taken him by surprise and he can't help presuming it's all too good to be true and sooner or later she'll remember she's not really speaking to him. His mood lifts, therefore, when she follows him to the kitchen and takes a seat on a stool by the counter top as if setting up camp for the duration of the time he will spend cooking dinner. She carries no pencil nor notebook nor anything else to occupy her hands. She simply sits, looking expectantly at him, as if his company is the greatest thing in her world, and he feels his heart swell with hope.

"What do you want to eat?" He asks now, as he crouches to rummage through the rations cupboard.

"Can we have soy protein and spiced rice?" She asks, and he feels his stomach do at least half a back flip before he manages to convince himself that it's a foolish reaction. All she has done is ask for a dish he associates with rather a lot of memories. "You haven't made it for weeks." She continues now. "And I seem to remember it tastes quite good when you cook it." He clears his throat under the cover of her self-deprecating laugh.

"Sure we can, Princess." He grabs a couple of portions of the meal in question and gets to work. He wonders if he ought to put some music on, or suggest she does, but based on the fact she's occupying a chair it doesn't seem like a dance party is on the cards, and if that's the case, he'd rather listen to her talk than listen to some long-dead singer. It's not a difficult decision, really, that one.

"Shall we watch another movie tonight?" She asks while he measures out water into a jug, and some of the water splashes over the edges as his hand jolts in surprise. He hadn't expected her to warm up to him again quite so quickly, and he's struggling to understand what the rules are at the moment, struggling to keep up with her changing mood regarding spending time in his company.

"That sounds like a plan." He thinks the tone of his voice is correct, a nice balance between sounding encouraging but not desperate. "I reckon I get to choose what we watch, though."

"Why would I let you do that?" She asks playfully, and he looks forward to pulling the rug out from under her feet.

"We made a deal." He reminds her. "A couple of weeks ago. When we first found the chess board. One game of chess equals one movie of my choice loosely based on ancient history. By my reckoning we're now up to thirty-four games of chess, so it seems I've got a bit of catching up to do." He fears this is a little risky, that he's treading a bit too close to reminding her of all the movie nights they have missed out on of late, so he is beyond relieved when she seems to take his comment in the spirit he intended.

"That was before you saw the light and realised how awesome chess is." He doesn't correct her there, because he's not sure she's quite ready to hear that it isn't chess he thinks is awesome, it's her.

"A deal's a deal." He gestures in her general direction with a purple silicone spatula to make his point, and she giggles at the less-than-serious image he presents.

"You can choose tonight, then. Again. But please do better than last night." He puts on a show of being offended at that, and by the time they have finished bickering about whether or not the film they watched the previous evening actually had anything to recommend it their meal is ready and he is serving it up and handing her a bowl.

"You're getting cutlery." He informs her cheerfully. "And water. You've sat there spectating quite long enough, it's about time you did something useful."

"How am I supposed to carry my bowl and some cutlery and two glasses of water?" She complains with exaggerated displeasure. "I think you proved this morning that doing that is a bad idea."

He fixes her with a mock frown and fixes his own glass of water. "Better?"

"Yes. Thank you."

She gives an impishly sweet smile and he briefly contemplates pouring the glass of water over her head. Instead he takes a seat at the table, and she does the same, and utensils are distributed, and food is eaten. She surprises him by asking shyly about his life on the Ark, and he's only too happy to launch into a detailed description of his time as a cadet in the guard, the routine and camaraderie of it all, the way that he went largely untroubled by both the physical and mental toughness of the training, the fact that, actually, it was a career path rather well-suited to his strengths and character, even if it wasn't exactly the most inspiring option out there. And, of course, it didn't hurt that it gave him more hope of one day being in a position to be able to protect his sister when his mother was no longer with them.

"What- what were you planning to do about that, if you don't mind me asking?" She questions him now.

"Keep hiding her." He shrugs. "I hadn't thought it out in much detail, I suppose. I know it would have been difficult, but it was all I knew. It hadn't occurred to me to worry about it beyond the normal everyday worry I felt for her anyway. But, yes, I suppose it would only have got harder as she got older and if mum passed away. And more lonely."

"Lonely?"

"Yeah. I mean, we had each other and that was great. But with a secret that big there's no way you can ever get close to anyone else, not really." He remembers the life he thought he had ahead of him, never expecting to be close to anyone the way he has grown close to Clarke. He takes a deep breath and wonders whether the words he can feel about to spill out of his mouth are wise. "In a weird and selfish way, I'm grateful that the Ark broke down and we ended up down here. I know people have died, I'm not trying to belittle that. And obviously there are major drawbacks, like the constant fear of people I love dying. But down here, I got to be more than a janitor or even a cadet, and I got to meet you, and O got to exist beyond our apartment and have a bit of independence and meet Lincoln, and I can't help but be at least a bit happy about all that, because none of those things would ever have happened for either of us if we'd stayed on the Ark. I suppose you think I'm crazy for feeling that way, your life was probably pretty good until everything started falling apart." He starts stacking their bowls with rapt concentration, conscious that he's said even more than he feared he would, and painfully aware that he somehow ended up equating him meeting Clarke with his sister meeting Lincoln, and that she was far too perceptive to let that one pass her by.

"I don't think any of that sounds anywhere near as crazy as you staying behind when that rocket launched." She tells him with a smile in her voice. "I'm not going to deny I had it pretty good on the Ark until the day my dad found that fault. I certainly was lucky compared to your family and everyone else on the poorer stations. But I'm also glad I got to breathe the fresh air on this terrifying planet, and meet so many people I wouldn't have met otherwise. The rest of the hundred. Lexa. You. I wouldn't change that for anything." She states with a vehemence that makes him glow slightly, and he wonders if this might be a good opportunity to have a go at reinstating hugging into their daily routine, or at least taking her hand.

Before he can act on either of those impulses, however, she has taken their dirty dishes and her red cheeks and fled to the safety of the washing up, and he curses himself for making her uncomfortable, and pushing her too quickly. He knew he was bound to end up doing that, unclear as he still is on where they stand. He sighs heavily and makes himself count to sixty before getting up to follow her.

In the end, he only makes it to twenty-seven, because he's beginning to think that all of this leaving her alone all the time isn't necessarily serving either of them very well, and by the time he makes it to the sink she is elbows deep in distraction and neither of them seem inclined to mention their recent conversation.

"Do you want any help?" He offers, as neutrally as possible.

"No thanks." She replies, equally blandly. "Do you want to go choose a film? I won't be long."

He does as she asks, because he suspects that arguing would be futile, and that she's no longer in the mood for one of them sitting around on a stool making sarcastic comments while the other does their chores. A shame, really, as he was quite looking forward to taking his turn at that. And based on last night it seems rather unlikely that they'll be interacting much during the film. All the same, he supposes, thinking back to some evenings not so long ago, he ought to be overjoyed that she is spending the evening in his company at all.

…...

Clarke is heartily sick of this game they play, this game that is so much less productive than chess – perhaps, she wonders, it might even be on a par with that ridiculous baked beans jigsaw – this game where every time she gets emotional she runs away to hide, and he sits back and leaves her alone. It's becoming a bit unfair, she thinks, because she's been doing her best to help him to bear his burdens, and she needs him to follow her and tell her that she doesn't always have to bear everything alone.

She is surprised, then, that this time he does follow, and she's not quite sure how to process that information so, of course, she foolishly makes him feel unneeded and sends him back on his way.

Perhaps, after all, she just needs to learn how to let him share her burdens.

She's not entirely sure how to do that, but she figures that thanking him for coming after her has to be a good start. She's not entirely sure about any of this, if she's honest, because until she met Bellamy Blake she never realised how complicated love could be. She's heard people talk about a fine line separating love and hate, about people crossing the line between a platonic relationship and a romantic one, but she's growing ever more convinced that those people were talking utter nonsense. There is no line of any description in her relationship with Bellamy, and there never has been. It's one glorious beautiful mess, like those rainbows she's seen since they came to Earth, the different colours blending into one another seamlessly. Not even the most determined artist could separate out the seven different strands and decide what shade to paint them, and in much the same way, she's long since given up categorising the many roles this man plays in her life. He is simply Bellamy, and she is Clarke. And not a line in sight.

She finishes washing the dishes and enters the living room where he is sitting in his usual place on the sofa, a film lined up and ready to play on the screen before him.

"Thanks for coming after me." She says simply, and he turns round to offer her a tentative smile.

"You're welcome. I'll keep working on it."

"Please do." She takes her seat and holds out the peace offering she brought with her. "I brought dried fruit mix. A very small amount of dried fruit mix, obviously, because we need to not waste rations. But I thought a small snack for movie night might be a nice idea."

"That sounds like a great idea." He accepts the bag and opens it, then sets it on the low table in front of them.

"What are we watching?" She asks him, wondering whether she ought to have brought a sketchbook.

"Gladiator." Yep, she should definitely have brought a sketchbook.

"Well, that sounds like a Bellamy film." She teases him, curling her legs up by her side.

"It'll be great. I hope." He assures her half-heartedly, digging into the dried fruit mix in spite of the fact they have not yet started the film.

"Your track record so far is pretty poor." She reminds him.

"Shh." He pokes her in the leg to emphasise his point. "It's starting." He presses play.

Sure enough, the film lives up to her expectations regarding quality, and she begins to wish she brought a sketchbook. In the absence of drawing, she decides, distracting Bellamy will have to do.

"When do you think things might start actually happening?" She asks through a mouthful of dried apple, fifteen minutes in, when no sign of a plot is in sight.

"I'm not sure it's going to turn out to be a things happening type of a film." He concedes with a grin. "I think it's going to be a few fight scenes strung together with no discernible plot."

"Do you still maintain that this was a good choice?"

"I mean, it has vaguely period costume and some people pretending to be gladiators." He reaches for the fruit and then offers it to her.

"I'm not sure whether that's a yes or a no."

"Shh, this bit might be important." He says, but sure enough it turns out that it is not. Nevertheless, she allows the silence to grow for a few minutes before the boredom grows unbearable. She entertains herself by poking his thigh intermittently with her toe, and he puts up with it for a surprisingly long time, betraying himself with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and half a smirk, before he eventually turns to her again.

"Did you want something, Clarke?" He asks, catching her foot with his hand with a grin.

"A better film?"

"Tomorrow. I promise."

He is distracted again by a fight scene involving inexplicable tigers, and she resigns herself to another stretch of boredom. At least this time, she notes, his thumb seems to be affectionately stroking her ankle. She'd never previously thought that could be a thing, but she is happy to be mistaken on this occasion. She has to admit, too, that watching him watching the film isn't entirely a waste of time. He looks quite sweet, really, gazing at the screen with rapt attention during the action scenes, and there's something rather lovely about the way he turns to throw her a smile every time there's a section that even he has to admit is dull. He turns out to be quite the gentleman about sharing their limited supply of snacks, too, passing the bag to her every time he takes a piece for himself.

"I think this might be another one of those films whose success was based on the appearance of the lead actor rather than the quality of the plot." She hypothesises to the room at large, as the movie reaches what she reckons is supposed to be its climax, not that she can foresee anyone becoming engaged in the story enough to care.

"Hmm. I'm not sure." Bellamy responds. "Personally, I'm not into him." He throws her a smirk and she giggles with more volume than dignity.

The film eventually grinds to a halt, to her great relief, and even Bellamy concedes that he will not mourn its passing. They sit there next to each other on the sofa for a moment, as if wondering what happens next, while he makes a study of checking the dried fruit packet is completely empty before scrunching it into a ball and throwing it into the bin.

"I suppose I should head to bed." She thinks aloud.

"Yes." He agrees. "I think I will too." He stands up, and offers her a hand to help her up, and they begin making their way upstairs.

"Please don't attempt to juggle my breakfast all the way up the stairs tomorrow." She feels the need to say. "It was a lovely surprise, and really thoughtful, but I won't be disappointed if you don't do it every morning." She will, actually, but she knows it's not realistic to expect him to pop into her room to greet her every single morning for the next five years. The food was a nice surprise too, of course, but not quite as special as starting the day with Bellamy beaming at her from his perch on the corner of her bed.

"Thank goodness you said that. I don't think I could do that again, it was surprisingly stressful. You know I forgot the forks and had to go back for them?" She laughs at that, and shakes her head at him. By now they have arrived at her bedroom door, and she finds herself not entirely sure how they say goodnight now, not sure how quickly she's willing to brush his telling her to shut up and understand under the carpet.

"Goodnight." She summons up her courage, and reaches around him in the briefest of brief hugs, and although she expected to catch him by surprise he hugs her right back.

"Goodnight." He tells her, smiling at her even as she pulls away from the hug with undignified haste. "Sleep well."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	23. Chapter twenty three

Echo isn't quite sure what she makes of living in this box in the sky. She's not really made for peacetime in general, she suspects, let alone peacetime in space. Life inside these walls of metal reminds her too much of those awful weeks she spent in that cage in Mount Weather, waiting like some pathetic damsel in distress for Bellamy Blake to turn up and set her free. She's never really taken very kindly to needing other people to help her fight her battles, any more than she's ever been a fan of being confined, constricted, contained like this. She supposes that she at least ought to be grateful for being safe – at any rate, these sky people, they seem to think that's how she ought to feel – but safety isn't really something a warrior sets much store by, and a spy least of all, in her experience. There are other things that are more important to her, all things considered. The opportunity to be useful and do the job she was raised to do has always been her priority, but there's precious little need for either espionage or archery in her current situation.

Of course, her other driving force has always been loyalty to her people, and she realised the moment these new people took her in that this would have to be her focus for the foreseeable future if she was going to get on with this situation at all. That noble goal took a bit of a knock – she doesn't mind admitting it – when Clarke and Bellamy, the two members of the group for whom she had at least grudging respect and who seemed least thoroughly opposed to her presence, decided to go and sacrifice themselves. It hasn't always come quite so naturally to her to practise loyalty to those of her new family who actually made it up here. Monty is a peacemaker through and through, and she's never had a lot of time for those. Murphy, to his credit, likes to cause trouble, but she's always found the way he does it rather lazy, almost as if he's leaving chaos as an accidental wake rather than employing his skills as a tactic, as a means towards an end. She was surprised to find, though, that she didn't much like him being ill. Perhaps she was doing better at this whole loyalty-to-her-new-people thing than she thought. Raven's growing on her, for sure – she may be a snob, but she's fierce, and that has to be admired. And Emori has guts and a core of steel that would put most Azgeda warriors to shame. Her favourite of her new family by far, though, is Harper. The cynic in her admits that this is largely because that young woman is the person who has accepted her most easily, between their hand-to-hand combat training sessions and their shared discovery of the Hydrazine, and that has in turn inspired her to give the unassuming blonde woman more consideration. But she knows in her heart of hearts that it's more than that. She knows that she sees far more of herself in her new friend than she ever expected, that they have far more in common than she ever dreamed of sharing with another human being. Harper is a woman who knows what it means to follow her commander without question whilst retaining her own character, her own initiative, her own identity. She knows what loyalty is, and what love is, and, yes, also what loss is. And she knows how to handle a gun, so that seems to make her a pretty useful person to know based on recent history.

And yet, Harper is also a woman who is happily in love with a certain peacemaker, and so, while her new family sleeps, Echo finds herself sitting and keeping vigil over the Earth alone.

…...

Clarke cannot help but feel, as she washes the dishes the next evening, that she's had really quite a pleasant day. Sure, Bellamy didn't bring breakfast into her room that morning, but he brought himself, and that was of far greater importance to her than a stack of pancakes. She quite likes this new morning routine they have going – at least, she hopes it's a routine, for all that it has only happened three times – where they start the day by sharing smiles as they sit on her bed and chat. Of course, it leaves open the possibility of breakfast slipping later and later through the morning, postponed until after they finish discussing everything and nothing, but that seems like a small price to pay, and she's growing ever more confident that they will run out of nightblood research long before they run out of rations in any case. They can afford a little leisure time.

She scrapes ineffectually at the remains of some cheese and inexplicable carrot pasta that are burnt onto the bottom of the pan and giggles quietly to herself. It was sweet of Bellamy to cook the dish that he knows is her favourite, and he made quite a point of making it abundantly clear to her that was the reason he had chosen it, but it would have been even sweeter if he had managed to cook it well. She knows she shouldn't complain, because he does cook every meal – except that one awesome soup night – but there was a strongly smoke-flavoured tinge to their supper today by the time he'd finished distracting himself by doing poor impressions of her terrible attempts to dance. And now she's the one who's supposed to clear up his mess. With a huff that contains at least as much affection as exasperation she puts the pan to one side. She doesn't want to spend her evening with a ruined pan. She wants to spend it with Bellamy. Decision made, she drains the sink and makes for the living room.

"I don't think that pan can be saved." She tells him as she walks through the door.

"That doesn't seem like the right attitude. Call yourself a doctor?"

"I'm pretty sure saving humans and saving cookware are rather different skill sets, Bellamy."

"I'm sorry I ruined dinner." He offers with a contrite expression.

She shrugs by way of response. "I'd probably have ruined it more. What are we watching?" She takes a seat next to him on the sofa, trying very hard not to overthink the fact that she has chosen a different spot to yesterday. It turns out trying not to overthink something is a pretty good recipe for actually overthinking it, she notes.

"The Lion King." He tells her with a boyish grin. "Specifically, the twenty-first century live action edition of the Lion King."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" She asks, giving up on not overthinking anything but leaning into him a little anyway. "Is it something only an old Earth culture nerd would understand?"

"My sister was obsessed with the twentieth century animated edition." He says, and she thinks he may have to give her more to work with than that. "She used to actually quote from it in conversation. I watched that movie so many times. Anyway, so then they must have decided to make this version years later. I've never seen it, but it feels like something we should watch."

"I'm in." She decides, curling up against his shoulder. In a mad moment of bravery, she lifts his arm so she can snuggle under it, pulling it around herself a little to help him get the idea.

"Yeah?" He asks, picking up on her less-than-subtle manoeuvring and hugging her into his side where she belongs. It has, she thinks, been too long since they shared a proper movie night like this. She's struggling to remember, right now, warm and relaxed and happy, why they ever stopped doing so in the first place.

"Yeah. Not a Roman in sight. How bad can it be?"

It turns out, actually, that it can be pretty bad. Not bad in every sense of the word, she has to concede. It's a well-made piece of cinema, and the music is catchy, and the story is basically heart-warming. But it is so thoroughly a cheesy kids' movie that she finds it at least a little farcical. She's pretty sure most of the bits she's laughing at are not actually supposed to be funny. Bellamy is kind enough to confirm this theory when Mr King Lion is pushed off the side of a gorge, howling as he falls to his untimely and tragic end, and she is overcome by a fit of the giggles.

"Are you laughing or crying?" He whispers against her hair.

"Laughing." She confirms, keen to avoid worrying him.

"That's not OK." He informs her. "Crying at this point would at least be a reasonable human reaction. How are you laughing?"

"It's funny." She tries to defend herself. "He just fell so stupidly. And it's like the cheesiest thing ever. The king dies, at the hands of his evil jealous brother, defending his young son, etc etc."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that." He makes a point of staring straight ahead at the screen and ignoring her giggles.

It doesn't get much better after that. She is at least allowed to laugh at the comedic duo and all of the flatulence-related-humour, because it seems that these two are actually supposed to provide light relief. But he huffs a little when she snorts at the young heir to the throne falling in love with his childhood best friend over the course of one scene, because she's beginning to consider herself something of an expert in complicated relationships with one's best friend, and they sure as hell don't look like that. The best, it turns out though, is saved for last, with fantastic implausibility coming thick and fast in the closing stages.

"Oh, look." She says, in mock surprise. "The final climax of the story also hinges on lions falling from high ledges. You'd have thought by now all these damn lions would have learnt to spend less time on top of cliffs, gorges, rocks, and other assorted high ground."

"I dislike watching films with you." He states with mock venom. "You are a ruiner of movie nights."

"Don't lie to me." She replies, feeling utterly secure in her rightful place in his arms. "I am your favourite movie night companion."

"Yes." He agrees. "But you are still terrible at watching films."

The ending of the film exceeds even her expectations, between the bit where Mr Evil Lion is brought down by his own henchmen, and the fact that the final scene is a perfect mirror of the first. It is, she thinks, almost as if the scriptwriters were worried that people wouldn't understand if they were too subtle. As the credits role, she shares this hypothesis with Bellamy.

"It's a kids' movie, Clarke. I don't really think subtle was on the brief."

"But, I mean, this was just ridiculous. It's like they had a checklist of cheesy movie tropes and they had to fit as many of them in as possible."

"There weren't that many, I'm pretty sure."

"The final scene was a perfect mirror of the first. The bad guy was ugly, the good guys were not. The bad guy was brought down by his own hubris and his own minions. Literally everyone met their end or nearly met their end in the same way. Do I need to go on?"

"The whole plot was based around an insecure son seeking to live up to his dead father. That has to go on the list." He seems to admit that he is beaten, and decides to join in.

"There was even a comedic fat character who farted a lot."

"And two best friends who fall in love." He observes now. "I mean, I'm pretty sure that's overdone by now."

"Still a good story though." She murmurs into his chest, trying again to practise not overthinking things.

"Yeah."

"You know what my favourite bit was?" She asks chirpily, when it becomes clear they have ended up in a slightly frightening conversational cul-de-sac. "That line about I'd rather marry an aardvark."

"So you're willing to concede it did have some redeeming features?"

"I'm pleased we watched it. It was hilarious, sometimes deliberately so, and adorable."

"One of my more successful film choices?" He asks.

"I would say so." She agrees around a yawn and hopes he understands.

"We should get some sleep." He suggests, and she reluctantly peels herself away from his side.

"We should." They stand up and start making their way towards the stairs. "Thanks for today, Bellamy. It's been lovely." It's not eloquent, she knows, but she suspects he'll get the message.

"Apart from dinner." He reminds her with a grin.

"Yeah, dinner was a low point." They're standing outside her bedroom door just looking at one another, and she's pretty sure hugging is a thing they're doing again now, but she's not quite sure who's supposed to make the first move.

In the end, neither of them make the first move. They just reach out to each other, at the same moment, utterly in synch, as if they planned it that way.

…...

If there is ever a night when Bellamy expects to be free of nightmares, this is it. He's had a smile on his face all day, and had Clarke in his arms all evening, and surely, surely, that ought to be enough to keep his demons away.

Of course, it is not. If there's one thing he's beginning to work out about this life, it's that the bad things happen when you least expect them.

The night starts off with his normal, horrific and heartbreaking but utterly predictable, common-or-garden Clarke dying in a hole in the ground nightmares. Those, he can deal with, he reckons. He's been doing so for a while. And then, of course, there's his sister in the bunker, but the bunker keeps shrinking, until it's just a hole beneath the floorboards that looks suspiciously like one of those coffins they used to use on Earth. And that's not great, obviously, but he's used to it, so he counts to a couple of hundred and then wills himself back to sleep.

The one where he's drilling Clarke's hip for bone marrow and she's screaming and begging him to stop and then suddenly they're in Mount Weather and he realises he's actually a monster, that's a new one. It takes him by surprise. He wakes up drenched in sweat, throat roar from screaming, sitting bolt upright in bed, and fixes his gaze on the far wall, reminding himself where he is, and that this particular hole in the ground is as different from Mount Weather as two nuclear bunkers could possibly be. It doesn't really work, and he's still shaking, and he wonders if perhaps he ought to go pace the corridors for a bit or get a drink of water or do something, anything, to take his mind somewhere else.

But then there's another surprise, in the form of gentle knocking on the door, and unless this is all some further nightmare within a nightmare kind of situation – and he thinks he probably can't rule that out, actually, given his current state – well, short of that, there's only one person who could possibly be knocking on his door.

"Come in." He calls, with a definite wobble in his voice, and she immediately pokes her head around the door.

"Nightmare?" She asks, and he nods, not quite feeling like words are a thing he is capable of at this moment in time. She walks cautiously into the room, giving him the chance to send her away, and slowly takes a place on the corner of his bed, perfectly mirroring the setup they have adopted in her room in the mornings of late.

"We can talk about it if you want." She offers softly. "But if you don't want to, or you can't, that's fine too. I hope it's alright if I sit here just until I know you're OK?" He nods at that, still not quite sure what to say, but very much sure that her presence is slowly making his world a better place. When he looks back on this, in the hours and weeks and years to come, he will wonder how Clarke could ever have suggested she didn't have a heart. There is nothing but compassion in her actions now, in this moment, as she simply sits with him while he attempts to piece himself back together.

"It was a different one." He tells her eventually, when his breathing has returned to normal. "I was drilling you for bone marrow and then we were in Mount Weather, and it was like I was one of the mountain men. There were the usual ones too, but that was the one that got me, I think."

"I'm so sorry." She tells him, eyes searching his. "That sounds horrible." He doesn't answer, because really, there is no useful reply he can make to that. He lets the silence grow, and wonders how to go about telling her that he's beyond grateful for her being here.

"Thanks." He says in the end, gruffly and inadequately.

"You're welcome. I'd do the same any time, if you wanted me to." She tells him, and he feels himself well up a little.

"It's better, having you here." He admits to her past the lump in his throat. "Of course I also want you to get some sleep, but if ever I'm actually screaming, and you want to stop by, that would be, you know... It would be a thing I would appreciate." He gets the words out at last and looks up into her warm gaze and wonders at the fact that they have come so far together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	24. Chapter twenty-four

Things are going rather wonderfully, Bellamy thinks, between their sociable new morning routine, and Clarke's wholehearted support during his nightmares, and the way they've actually shared proper movie night movie nights for the last few days, complete with actual physical proximity as well as Clarke's exasperating cynicism. To be fair, she was rather less cynical about Titanic. It turns out there are actually some areas of old Earth culture they can more or less agree on. They've made such progress that, if he were to squint a little, he could almost believe that nothing was wrong at all.

So, of course, he finds himself feeling an urgent need to ruin everything.

Not deliberately, obviously, but he is utterly convinced that a sizeable quantity of ruining will come hand-in-hand with a certain conversation they need to have. Because he has absolutely and completely run out of anything even vaguely useful to contribute to project nightblood. He has even waded through that document about Luna and understood not a word of it for the sake of postponing this moment as far as possible. But, at last, it can be put off no longer, and he finds himself doing that thing where he sits and watches Clarke work, heart in his eyes while he waits for her to notice him.

"Yes?" She turns to him, and he finds himself caught out because he was hoping he'd have longer than that to prepare himself and marshal his thoughts.

"I don't think there's any good way to say this, Clarke." He begins, and sees her blanch, and realises that there probably were, at the very least, better ways to begin than that. "I'm sorry." He rushes to apologise, and reaches out a hand towards her, but he doesn't quite have the courage to actually touch her, because he seems to remember that doing so doesn't go down too well when he's in the middle of upsetting her. He's caught by surprise, then, when she closes the gap between them herself and holds on tight, and it gives him the courage to continue. "I'm not trying to hurt you, really. It's just - I've finished with the nightblood. And I'd like to start looking at logistics for... moving out of here. I want to have a look at planning journeys, both straight to the valley and via Polis. And have a think about how we might hypothetically split the supplies, how everything would work. Because I still don't know what I'm going to do, although I do think I'm getting there, and if I'm having a go at making my decisions based on logic rather than guilt I figure I should probably have all the available information." She's still holding his hand by the time he runs out of words, and he hopes that's a good sign. He looks up to meet her gaze, and there are tears in her eyes, but she doesn't waver.

"That sounds sensible." She says thickly. "Thank you for being honest with me. I think I'll be done by the end of tomorrow myself, so if you make a start now, then once I'm done too we can look at it together?" That suggestion is, he decides, further completely logical evidence that sticking with Clarke is beginning to look like a rather sensible idea. How had he previously convinced himself so easily that splitting up and going off on his own was likely to be of any help to anyone? Every time she opens her mouth she seems to remind him that they work best as a team. But he knows, for his own peace of mind, that he needs to confirm that hunch through research, too, rather than following her out of sheer emotion.

"Thank you." He tells her, as if those two words could possibly come close to conveying everything he's currently feeling, and wraps her in a quick one-armed half a hug. "I'm going to go attempt to figure out the mapping software." He gestures to the computer on the other side of the lab. "Shout if you need anything. Or want anything, even." She offers him a small smile and returns to her reading.

The mood for the rest of the afternoon is not exactly buoyant, he decides, but he has certainly not created the disaster he feared he would. She is not giving him the cold shoulder, and she is not avoiding him, and neither of them have burst into spontaneous tears since the end of their conversation. On the contrary, she seems to be making a concerted effort to show him that they're still on good terms, for all that her smiles don't always reach her eyes. She still curls into his side without hesitation when he presses play on that night's film, and he wonders whether it's his imagination or whether she might, in fact, be wrapping her arm around his waist a little more securely than normal. He doesn't mention it, but relaxes into the feeling of her hair against his cheek and her warmth in his arms. He can pretend no more, though, when their goodnight hug is rather a lot tighter and of somewhat longer duration than he's used to. She's holding on to him like she doesn't ever want to let him go.

…...

She doesn't really want to let him go off on his own, but she realises it's in no way up to her. All she can do is support him as best as she can while he makes an informed decision himself. And, even if he does leave, she has a funny feeling they'll find their way back to each other one day. That seems to be what they do. As often as she might repeat that to herself, though, she's still struggling with the idea of letting him wander off into danger alone. And she knows that's stupid, because he's the one who's strong as an ox and could probably shoot an acorn from a hundred paces if ever there were any point to doing so, but she can't help feeling rather protective of him all the same.

She's almost finished working out how to protect him with the nightblood now, so it seems that it's about time for her to go and run an errand that she's known for a while now, in the back of her mind, that she would have to run eventually. It's rather an important errand, and one she needs to get out of the way before he takes the bone marrow sample, and one that, if it goes well, might mean they can find a beautiful compromise that lets them stay together after all.

That optimism carries her through the following day feeling slightly lighter than she had when he first brought up the subject of the journey to Polis. She even finds herself feeling brave enough to ask about it over the breakfast table.

"How did you get on yesterday with your route planning?"

"It was informative, I suppose."

"Yes?" She doesn't know how hard to press him to talk about this.

"You were right about the difficulties of going to Polis. Distance, desert, sandstorms." He falls silent, but she senses that he might not be finished and gives him a moment. "Home sweet home and chickens called Juvenal are starting to look like a good bet." He tells her eventually, eyes downcast, tone carefully non-committal.

"OK." She keeps her voice neutral despite the effort it takes. "Well, you don't have to decide right away. I reckon I'll be as ready as I'll ever be to go ahead with making you a nightblood by the end of today, and then once we've done that we can both work on figuring out the journey."

"So, we do our separate things today, nightblood procedure tomorrow, work together the day after?" He asks, and she nods by way of response, because she thinks he might read the misdirection in her voice if she spoke, might notice that she is hiding something.

It is easy not to say too much to him during the course of the day. He doesn't chatter away while modelling his route on the other side of the lab, as if realising that to do so would be at least a little insensitive. Around mid afternoon, he takes himself off to do an inventory of their rations, and she breathes a sigh of relief and takes a moment to lay her head on the desk. After all, she actually has nothing left to do, she just can't quite face moving on to the next step right this moment.

A staged cough alerts her to the fact that he's back, far sooner than she could have expected, looking at her with some concern.

"I forgot to take a pen." He offers sheepishly by way of explanation. "Are you OK?" He asks, and her heart soars a little at the fact that he's no longer quite so committed to leaving her alone all of the damn time.

"There's a lot on my mind." She admits with a shrug. "But then again, I imagine that's not uncommon round here."

"Yeah." He agrees softly. "It seems that way. We can talk about it, if you want to?" He offers, but she shakes her head firmly. Talking about this does not sound like an appealing idea.

"I've got a better idea." She decides, jumping to her feet. "Come on. Nauseatingly impossible Ark Guard routine time." A tough workout sounds like just the thing to clear her head and bring the two of them some quality time together with none of this hanging over them. He seems to agree with her idea, and joins her in resolutely avoiding discussion of anything meaningful for the whole of the rest of the day.

Of course, it turns out that just because they're not talking about any of this, doesn't mean they're not thinking about it. She brings a sketchbook to keep her company while they watch tonight's film, fingers itching at the fact it's been entire days since she last drew anything. It takes a bit of effort to find a position in which she is both comfortably ensconced in Bellamy's arms and able to move her hand across the page, but with some perseverance she settles on a suitable pose and lets her thoughts take her pencil where they will. When the credits roll, she is slightly surprised by what she has produced, but nonetheless she has to admit it's rather aesthetically pleasing. And she has a feeling that Bellamy might need to see it for other reasons, too. Not giving herself the chance to second-guess her actions, she rearranges herself slightly so that he can see her drawing and watches with interest as his face cracks into a smile, albeit a slightly watery one.

"That's a pretty artistic chicken coop, Princess." He whispers.

"Only the very best for our Juvenals." She teases him with a grin.

"I look forward to helping you build it." He tells her, and she can hear the wobble in his voice.

"Yeah?" She can't resist pushing just a little, wondering if he means to imply what she thinks she can read in that sentence.

"Yeah." He confirms, nodding resolutely. "We're definitely building a chicken coop together. I'm still not sure how long it'll take me to get there, but operation Juvenal is on. I promise."

They wander up the stairs in good spirits after that, and it isn't until they say goodnight that she allows herself to be hit by a small barrel-load of anxiety. She knows what she's intending to do tomorrow, and she knows that he has no clue, and she briefly wonders if she ought to speak to him about it. But she's pretty sure he'd get all worried and over-protective and things, and she's concerned that he might even try to stop her, and then they'd both be screwed. So she just hugs him tight and turns over her plan in her mind.

…...

He's only been researching the logistics of a potential journey to Polis for a little over a day, but by the time he stares at the ceiling and waits for sleep that night he's becoming increasingly sure that his mind is made up. It really does look like a lot of sandstorm for no great gain, the idea of trekking through that desert, presumably on foot, to check out the outside of a closed bunker. He continues to turn over the different factors in his mind, realising that, after all, there is nothing he can do for his sister, just as Clarke predicted, and he would likely be putting himself in danger if he tried.

It occurs to him all in a rush that he would also be putting Clarke in danger if he went off on his own, because he suddenly realises something he should have noticed a lot sooner. There's no way she's going to be able to walk and run and hunt and defend herself and generally function on the ground on her own so soon after he takes the bone marrow sample. He remembers when they got their people out of Mount Weather and those that had been drilled for their marrow couldn't walk for weeks. Well, that settles it. Not because he feels guilty at the idea of leaving Clarke injured and defenceless, not exactly. But because he wants to be there for her, wants to be the person who helps her through it.

His sister may be his responsibility, but Clarke Griffin is his choice.

Decision made, he falls into his first dreamless sleep in quite some time. He hops out of bed the following morning and throws his clothes on with something of an impatient air because he's beginning to consider any moment he's not in Clarke's company as a moment wasted. And besides which, he reckons it's about time he told her that he's not going anywhere. And then there are pancakes to be eaten and slow dances to be danced and, just maybe, now that his guilt is no longer hanging over them, conversations about love to be had.

In his rush, he almost misses the note.

It's not just the rushing, really, he supposes. There's also the fact that he can't think of one good reason why there would be a note folded on the floor just outside his bedroom door. There's one other person in this bunker, and she's safely asleep next door, or probably just beginning to stir and wondering where he's got to. So where on Earth has this note appeared from, and what is it doing right here?

It does seem to have his name on it, and with a sinking feeling he recognises Clarke's handwriting. Why is she leaving him letters when she is perfectly capable of just walking in and speaking to him? He supposes he might as well read it before he continues his short journey.

Bellamy,

I've gone on a little recon expedition to check out conditions outside and see if I can find the rover. I plan to be back before the end of the day. Don't worry – I won't do anything stupid and nightblood's good stuff.

Clarke

For a brief, horrific moment, he is furious with her, thinking that maybe this is some twisted way of getting back at him for hurting her all those weeks ago. Then the moments grow more horrific, as he understands that she really is gone. He runs to the doors to the outside world, knowing that there is no way he can go through them, unprotected as he still is, but desperate to stand in the place she most recently stood. He can open the outside door, and he does, looking through one layer of thick glass at what seems to have become a desert, nothing but sand and hopelessness as far as the eye can see. And certainly no sign of a headstrong young woman, beyond a single set of footprints that are fast being obliterated by the wind.

He hears a sort of spluttering sound and realises that he's the source of it, as he chokes on his own sobs. What on Earth can have possessed her to do this now, just when he was going to make her celebratory pancakes and tell her he'll never leave her side? He stands there, staring blankly and making no effort to stop his tears, until her footprints disappear altogether. Now it as if she was never even here. As if they never lived in this place together.

As if he let her fall, all those months ago, as he does in his nightmares.

In the end, only the most mundane of realities can bring an end to his vigil. He finds himself desperately in need of a bathroom break and curses himself a little for his human weakness, because something very animalistic inside of him needs to stand here all day until Clarke gets home.

The thought of her not getting home is something he will not allow.

All the same, the need to use the loo at least rouses him to move and to consider his situation a little. He'll be no use to Clarke when she gets back – because she will come back – if all he's done all day is stand there like an idiot. She'd want him to use his head and get on with making a plan. So after he's been to the bathroom, he grabs some rations from the cupboard, and fetches plenty of water, because he's pretty sure that'll come in handy after a day in that wasteland. Eager to get on with something productive, he takes apart the bed frame that has been pushed up against the wall of the gym, and brings the pieces and an assortment of basic tools up to his place next to the doors. While he waits for her to return with half his attention fixed, always, on the horizon, he sets about fashioning the remains of the bed into a rough pair of crutches so that she can get around once he's taken the bone marrow sample. When he's satisfied, he wraps the handholds gently in some scraps of fabric, handling his new creation with all the care he feels for their future owner. He might not be able to charge out into the midst of a wilderness like some knight in shining armour, but he can at least make himself useful here.

She'll find her way home soon, he knows it. Because there's no way she'd leave him like this. That's just not what they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	25. Chapter twenty five

It occurs to Clarke just a little too long after leaving the bunker that, perhaps, it was not a good idea to set out on this expedition the day after a strenuous workout. The muscles in her legs feel like they have suddenly acquired the texture of the porridge they usually have for breakfast and there is a lingering exhaustion deep in her core that she has a feeling will not prove conducive to digging the rover out of all the sand that must, by now, have banked up around it. All the same, she doesn't turn back. Stubbornness has always been a key facet of her personality, along with just a hint of a tendency to reckless overconfidence.

The walk to the rover takes several hours, and her fair skin is starting to catch but she decides they probably have worse things to worry about than a bit of sunburn. It seems a small sacrifice to make in order to reach the rover that, she hopes, will allow them both to stop by Polis together on their way home. It's almost completely buried in the sand, only her memory of the landscape and the hollow sound of her feet on a bit of exposed roof to let her know its location, and on realising the size of the task before her she allows just a hint of panic to set in.

She thinks of Bellamy, and the difficult things he's done for her before, and that gives her the strength to do this difficult thing for him now. For them. For the possibility of a future where they can stick together.

She's less than half way through her digging when she runs out of water. If she was more easily frightened, she thinks, she would turn and walk back to the bunker now. But she knows that she wouldn't make it, would collapse of dehydration long before she could ever get back there on foot, so there is really only one logical choice.

She keeps digging.

From about three quarters of the way through her task things start to get hazy. She finds it increasingly hard to concentrate, increasingly hard to pick up her shovel. There are blisters oozing on her hands, but one of the advantages of her dehydrated state is that she is too out of it to feel the pain. She finds herself sitting on her butt in the sand, idly noting that the rover seems to be free now, and wondering in a disembodied sort of a way if she ought to get in it and drive home. She's not sure how she climbs into the driver's seat, and she's even less sure how she manages the return trip to the bunker. She will be only too grateful, when she looks back on her misadventure that evening, for the fact that it is incredibly straightforward to drive in a straight line over a flat surface, devoid of all obstacles in the wake of Praimfaiya.

She remembers the journey home only in dazed snatches. Exhausted, she droops in her seat even while driving, and at one point is brought back to reality by the jolt of her head hitting the steering wheel. She grits her teeth and retains control of the rover by sheer force of will. Bellamy is waiting for her. She needs to get home. She told him she'd get home.

Through the haze misting her mind, she doesn't notice the moment the bunker first appears on the horizon. Suddenly the entrance is there, looming over her, and suddenly she can see Bellamy, face and hands pressed desperately up against the glass, and then she knows everything will be OK. Everything will always be OK, as long as he's watching over her.

Somehow she parks the rover in the airlock between the doors and staggers to her feet, and she's loosely aware that it seems to be raining on her and that there's still a door between her and Bellamy, and she's sure that there's a good reason for that. Indeed, she suspects it's a reason she probably knows and understands under normal circumstances. But at this moment, all she is capable of doing is slumping against the glass, hands mirroring Bellamy's perfectly, fingers over his.

And then the doors are finally open and he's reaching for her and he's saying her name over and over and over, like a prayer, and he's dropping feather-light kisses into her hair and onto her forehead and, at last, she can collapse into his arms.

…...

When she comes round she is disorientated to say the least. She's in a vague approximation of the recovery position, and she can feel carpet beneath her cheek, and for some reason she is soaked to the skin. No sooner has she blinked than warm hands are lifting her head and offering her water.

"Here, Princess. I think probably you should drink first and talk later."

For once in her life, she follows his advice without argument. Once she has tackled the first glass of water, through slow sips lasting what feels like an eternity, he scoops her into a sitting position against his chest. He seems to think she's becoming slightly more functional, because he lets her actually hold the second glass herself. She forces herself to keep sipping rather than gulp it down all at once. All the while, his arms stay around her, and periodically she feels his lips against her forehead or hears him murmur her name. She seems to remember that's a new development, but based on the current state of her powers of analysis she reckons she probably can't be too sure.

With the third glass, he offers her a pack of crackers.

"Here. I think some food will probably do you good as well."

"Thanks." She finds her voice is surprisingly functional. She rather expected the parched feeling she remembers having in the back of her throat for the majority of the day to stick around longer.

She sips on the water and munches on the crackers in silence, broken only by Bellamy's ongoing insistence on murmuring incoherently in her general direction. She thinks he probably means well but she's beginning to become slightly concerned for his sanity. She decides probably this will all make more sense when she's fully rehydrated, and carries on with her water. Unprompted, he eases a fourth glass into her hands the moment she finishes the third.

"Why am I soaked?" She asks eventually, when she feels up to attempting a conversation. She's pretty sure that there are other more important things going on here, but in this moment, being wet through is something she cannot altogether explain and it's bothering her. "I'm pretty sure I spent the day in a dessert, not a rain storm."

"Decon shower. I switched it on when it became clear you weren't quite up to it. Also dealt with the doors on your behalf."

"Of course. I knew it made sense, I was just too out of it to put the pieces together."

"Are you getting chilly? Are you feeling ready to go and change? I didn't want to carry you to your bed soaked through because I thought you'd regret ruining the bedclothes." He says with something of his usual humour.

"I'm fine. You're quite warm." She tells him conversationally.

"Stay here until you're feeling better, then." He invites her, and she decides it will be no hardship to take him up on the offer. She nibbles on a cracker, and wonders which of her many questions to tackle next.

"I need to apologise to you." Bellamy surprises her by saying. She wants to tell him not to bother, that having him look after her like this is all the apology she could ever need, but her mouth is full of dry cracker and she can't swallow it quickly enough. "I need to apologise properly for that horrific argument we had the other week. I know we've worked through quite a lot of the issues themselves – or, at least, I hope we have – but I've never told you how sorry I am for the way I behaved that day. I'm so ashamed of that shut up and understand line in particular. I should never have told you to shut up, and I should have realised you did understand. It just kept going through my head while you were out there today that I'd never made that right. I'm so sorry."

"I forgive you." She says simply, because that's what they do. He squeezes her tight in response, and she sips on some more water. He occupies himself once again with absently kissing her forehead in between assorted Clarkes and Princesses, and she decides that it might be quite nice to stay like this forever. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be a recipe for achieving much.

"So I think it might be wise if I rest this evening." She tells him pragmatically. "Then we can do the nightblood tomorrow and plan a journey to Polis the day after."

"We don't need to plan a journey to Polis." He tells her, and it takes her a while to conclude that her brain is no longer particularly befuddled and he is really saying what she thinks he is. "I'm not going to Polis. I'm coming home, with you. I made my decision."

"Bellamy, it's obvious I've given you a fright today, but you don't need to come with me just because of that. Logic, remember?"

"Clarke, I'd already made my decision. I made my mind up last night, and this morning I was rushing to your room to tell you when I found that awful note. While we're on the subject, next time you decide to go putting yourself in danger, could you maybe tell me to my face?" It's the first time since she got back that he's allowed her to see how worried and angry he was, and it scares her a bit.

"You – you decided? Decided not to go to Polis? But that's partly why I went looking for the rover today, so that we could both go there together, get through the desert more quickly, be safe from sandstorms inside it." There's a beat of silence, in which she looks up and meets his eyes and sees the truth in them. He really had decided to stay with her, before she went and did all this. Well, now she feels a little foolish.

"Next time I make an important decision late at night, I'll remember to wake you up and inform you." He says with a wry grin.

"I think that might be best." She confirms, and takes another cracker.

"I was really worried about you." He lets out in a rush, as if he's been holding back admitting to this since she got in the door.

"I'm sorry. I should have talked it through with you in person. I was just worried you wouldn't let me go."

"Since when have I ever been able to stop you doing anything?" He asks rhetorically, and she busies herself with finishing her water for a moment.

"You didn't need to worry about me, Bellamy." She tells him at last. "I knew I'd get home in one piece, because I knew I had you to come home for." He doesn't say anything in reply, but buries his face in her neck, and she is quite happy to sit like that for a while.

Eventually, she decides they cannot actually spend the entire night sitting on the floor. Apart from anything else, the carpet is becoming rather damp from her soaked clothing. And Bellamy's T shirt is sodden, too.

"I think I should go have a nicer shower and put on some dry clothes. And maybe also find some cream to put on all this sun burn."

"I think I might need to change too. This T shirt was less damp, earlier, I seem to remember."

"I'll see you downstairs in a bit?"

"No way, Princess. Get settled in your room. I'm bringing supper to you tonight."

She decides not to argue with that. Reluctantly, she extricates herself from her wonderful location and accepts his arm as he walks her to her room.

…...

The evening is already passing them by, between the length of her excursion and the amount of time they spent sitting in the corridor, so he changes quickly and sets about making soup. Having learnt from his previous attempt to carry too many things up the stairs, he makes multiple journeys, and by the time she emerges from the shower wearing a dry T shirt and leggings she appears slightly bamboozled by the sheer quantity of things in her room.

"What's all this?" She asks, brows raised, and he is grateful that she's feeling recovered enough for her playful side to be on display.

"This is me attempting to look after you."

"It was only dehydration, Bellamy, and then I drank water. I'm fine."

"All the same, you had a big day. So sit down and enjoy your soup." She does as he asks, making herself comfortable on her pillows and picking up her bowl. "There are also crackers, and water." He indicates the items on the cabinet by her side.

"Thank you, those things at least made sense to me. But what's with everything else?" She gestures to the assortment of chess pieces, sketchbooks, medical supplies and, of course, crutches that form a heap by the side of her bed.

"I wasn't sure what you'd want to do this evening, so I brought chess and some drawing things. And I thought you might want cream for your sunburn and maybe something to cover your blisters. And... I made you a present while you were out." Abandoning his soup temporarily, he digs the crutches out from the bottom of the pile and holds them out to her. "I realised that we hadn't thought about how you were going to get around after I take the bone marrow sample, and, I mean, I had a lot of time on my hands today, so, yes, crutches." He's aware that he's engaging in a spot of nervous babbling, but she seems to be too busy giving him a slightly damp smile to care.

"Thank you. That's really thoughtful of you." She carefully puts her soup to one side and hops to her feet to pull him into a hug.

"You're welcome."

"Thank you for everything, while we're on the subject." She says as she resumes her place. "For making supper, for bringing chess, for fussing like a mother hen."

"I do not fuss." He defends himself vigorously against her accusation, gesticulating with his soup spoon to reinforce his point.

"Bellamy, you definitely have fussed." She doesn't seem that bothered about it, though, judging by the smile on her face.

"OK, yes, maybe I have fussed a bit." He concedes, noting that probably either chess or a sketchbook would have been adequate.

"So, chess after supper?"

"Sure. Not for long, though, it's already getting late and you've had a long day."

"You've had a long day, too. It can't have been easy, waiting for me."

"No. No, it wasn't."

"I'm sorry. I'll try not to worry you like that again."

They eat in silence for a little while after that, both occupied with their own thoughts, but by the time their bowls are empty and the chess set is on the bed they are both inclined to look to happier things. They pass the time in bickering over which film they might watch tomorrow, which vegetables they might grow when they reach their new home, which dish Clarke might most productively learn how to cook next. He misses her, somehow, even though she's right here, because after the stress of today he thinks he will probably miss her whenever she's not actually in his arms, for the next few days at least. He surprises himself by winning the chess game, and he tells her consolingly that he's sure it's just the residual effects of the dehydration impairing her concentration, and she responds by throwing a bishop at him and telling him that she liked it better when he was terrible at this game. She says that she wants to play again, but he thinks it's time she went to sleep.

"We've had a big day today, Clarke, and we've got another big day tomorrow. Get some rest, please? I'll see you bright and early tomorrow with pancakes." He stands and begins to tidy up a little. He'll take all these fussing utensils back to their rightful locations another time, he decides.

"You will?"

"Didn't I say we'd have pancakes to celebrate nightblood day?"

"Of course." She doesn't look happy at the idea, and he can't work out why. He was so sure she liked him popping into her room to say hello in the mornings, and she definitely likes pancakes. Confused and a little concerned, he walks over to the place where she still sits at the head of the bed and reaches out to tuck a stray wave of hair behind her ear.

"Go to bed, Clarke. I'm sure we can fit some chess in tomorrow, too." She reaches out to wrap her arms around his waist in the tightest of hugs, her head barely reaching his chest as she sits on the bed. Feeling both slightly brave and very afraid he bends to kiss her forehead.

"Goodnight, Bellamy."

"Night, Clarke. Sleep well."

"You too." He walks out of the room, only stopping to turn back and smile at her once, and then eases the door closed.

He makes the short journey down the corridor and gets ready for bed, thanking any divinity that might still be at all interested in the fate of the human race for the fact there are toothbrushes in this place. He opts for a pair of tastelessly plaid pyjama bottoms by way of sleepwear and surprises himself by getting straight into bed. Normally falling asleep is something of a battle for him, and at the very least involves reading for a while, but the stress of today followed by the sharp relief of having Clarke safely home has him so exhausted that he is out like a light the moment his head hits the pillow.

He is woken some time later by the sound of knocking on the door. A quick glance at the clock tells him that it has been about two hours since he went to bed.

"Come in." He calls, because it can only be Clarke. He's not quite sure why she's here, because he's pretty certain he didn't have any screaming-based nightmares. She tentatively walks into the room, and at once he can tell something is badly wrong. He can hear her breathing heavily, and he could swear she is actually physically shaking, but the most worrying thing of all is her posture, the way she stoops as if utterly defeated, rather than standing straight as the proud and terrifying woman he knows. Without stopping to question his impulse, he jumps to his feet and rushes over to wrap her in his arms.

"You're OK, Clarke, you're OK. Want to tell me what's wrong?" She shakes her head against his chest, but she's holding onto him tightly so he stays put for the moment. Gradually, her breathing calms and the shaking subsides, and he eases back to look down at her face.

"You doing better?" She nods. "Want to come and sit down and tell me about it?" Another nod. He leads her over to the bed, and they sit side-by-side, leaning back against the headboard, his arm around her shoulders.

"I'm worried about tomorrow." She tells him at last, and although that's not very many words at all, it's more than enough for him to work out what's going on here. She said once before that she was struggling to sleep, worrying about things at all hours of the night, and he knows that she's been nervous about whether she will be able to conduct the nightblood procedure correctly and whether he'll be OK, and it's hardly surprising that she might be feeling rather anxious after the day they've just had.

"OK." He replies calmly. "Do you want me to talk you through why you don't need to be or do you want a hug?"

"Just a hug, thanks." He is only too happy to oblige.

They sit in silence for a few moments until she speaks again.

"Thanks. I know there's no good reason to be worried about it, I've gone through everything logically and I know I'm doing everything I can to ensure you'll be OK. Sometimes it turns out a hug is more use than a reasoned argument. Thanks for working that out."

"You're welcome."

"Can we talk about something else for a bit? Something distracting?"

"Tell me how you got into drawing." He suggests, and it turns out to be a good idea. She prattles away cheerfully for some minutes, distracting herself very effectively from the concerns of tomorrow, and as he's rather tired he allows his cheek to fall onto the crown of her head. It is blissful, he decides, to simply sit and let the sound of her voice wash over him, at the end of a day when he expended so much emotional energy over so many hours to convince himself he hadn't lost her.

She seems content, as she begins to run out of words and tiredness starts to steel over her, to just sit quietly curled up against him. He wonders whether this might be a good moment to mention the love thing, but he's only just got her back, really, and she might need a bit more time, and he doesn't want to scare her off when things finally seem to be so comfortable between them. It's difficult, he thinks, being in love with his best friend and closest colleague, who also happens to be the only other human being he's likely to see for the next five years. And for all that she can be rather eloquent on the subject of forgiveness, she's never been one to talk readily about her own emotions. All in all, he feels like it's probably best to hold off on the scary conversations until he's sure he's not going to ruin this peace between them.

And, actually, right now, it doesn't even seem to matter that much whether he tells her or not. He's pretty sure she knows anyway. His response to her safe return earlier this evening was hardly subtle.

"Do you want to go back to your room and try to get some sleep?" He whispers, when her head is starting to droop.

"I don't think I'll sleep if I go back there just now. Would you tell me a story? Like you did that time when I was sick? One of your stories about the Greeks and Romans?"

"Sure. What story do you want?"

"Something with a happy ending."

"There's not that many Classical stories with a happy ending, Princess."

"Then make up the ending. It's not like I'll know." She suggests with a giggle.

Maybe he takes her up on that suggestion too easily, he thinks. Maybe he should try harder to think of a myth with a happy ending, because there are at least some. The Odyssey basically has a happy ending, after all, if you leave aside all the hanging. Actually, with his history, he does struggle to leave aside the hanging. And, besides which, there is another story he thinks she needs to hear.

So he weaves her a story of Aeneas and Dido, in another lifetime, in another world. A story of a man who thought he was a hero, and who never expected to fall for this displaced princess, but who knew, from the moment he first saw her comforting a crying child who was so far from home, that there could be no one else in the world for him. A story of misinterpreted duty and misplaced guilt, of thinking he had to leave but wishing he didn't. Of a Dido who didn't rant and rave like all of the worst old Earth gender stereotypes, but who understood, and spoke of forgiveness. Of an Aeneas who realised, bit by bit and little by little, that the images he saw when he closed his eyes were not meaningful messages but his own guilty conscience, and that helping this remarkable woman to build her new home was a perfectly admirable destiny.

She is asleep before his tale is half told, but he continues all the same. He likes to think that it can't do her subconscious any harm to hear this. When he runs out of words he briefly wonders about carrying her back to her room, but after all, she did say she didn't think she would sleep there. Gently, carefully, he eases her down onto the pillow. He makes a valiant effort to roll away, but it seems even in sleep, Clarke knows what she wants. The arm wrapped around his waist won't let go, and her head is pillowed on his chest, and her deep, even breathing lulls him into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	26. Chapter twenty six

The previous day certainly involved several new developments, Clarke acknowledges wryly, as she wakes up in Bellamy's bed. The most obvious one – namely the new state of their sleeping arrangements – is in fact the least surprising to her, being as it is no shocking departure from their pattern of showing up in each other's rooms for breakfast or nightmares or just a chat. The casual kissing on the forehead, that's new too, and she's definitely a fan of that. It's rather lovely and affectionate and, at risk of being a bit pathetic about the whole thing, it makes her feel cherished. The only concerning diversion from the script was that he seemed to have adopted the habit of repeating her name a lot for no apparent reason, and thankfully that disappeared once she was well enough for something resembling normal service to resume. It scared her more than she likes to admit, seeing him almost unhinged like that over her safety and stupidity.

She's not sure whether it will be awkward, the two of them waking up here together, but she finds herself so utterly at home that she feels no inclination to run back to her room and pretend it never happened. Besides which, if she runs away now she reckons it'll substantially reduce the chances of this ever occurring again, and that seems distinctly foolish and more than a little short-sighted. It was the best night's sleep she's had in ages, being able to feel the comforting warmth of his skin against her palm whenever she woke up – she fell straight back to sleep again every time. And she's pretty sure he felt the benefit of the arrangement to, because there was not so much as a hint of a bad dream all night. So it is that she is quite determined to stay put, cheek against his shoulder, lazily picking out patterns on the wallpaper with her eyes and patterns on his stomach with her fingertips as she waits for him to stir.

"Morning, Princess."

"How did you know I was awake?"

"You breathe differently when you're asleep." He explains in a rather matter-of-fact way, as he shifts a little and lazily kicks away a bit of the duvet.

There doesn't seem to be a good response to that, so she changes the subject. "Your pyjamas are stupid." She tells him truthfully.

"Yes. But, then again, I think that's the least of our worries." She stiffens slightly, wondering if he's going to confront her about staying the night. "You know, end of the world and all. At least I have pyjamas to wear."

"To be fair, you're not even wearing pyjamas. You're only wearing the bottoms."

"I don't see you complaining." He teases her, and she forces herself to stop tracing the planes of his chest with her fingers. It's probably not going to make this less awkward, she reminds herself.

"We should probably get on with our big day." She decides reluctantly. "The sooner we get started, the sooner it will all be over and done with."

"It's going to be OK." He tells her softly, and squeezes her tight against him. "We can do this. Together."

On that note they set about getting themselves ready for the day and heading down to breakfast. Bellamy beats her there, so as she arrives he serenades her with a terrible rendition of Wonderwall as he sings along to his chosen kitchen music of the morning. She laughs and tells him he's being a fool, but she can't help but find that her heart lifts at his actions all the same. They spend the meal on more serious topics, going over every minute detail of the plan for the day until she's pretty sure they'll be able to recite it to their grandchildren one day.

Not that grandchildren are necessarily on the cards. Obviously.

It's not until the end of breakfast that she dares to notice that nothing at all has been said about the fact she stayed in his room last night. Well, that answers her question about whether it would be awkward, she supposes. It seems that, on the contrary, it is just the way things are now.

They move into the lab and she forces herself to take calming breaths. With Bellamy by her side, she can take on anything. She makes short work of setting up the equipment she will need once he takes the bone marrow sample and preparing and administering a dose of local anaesthetic. She thought she would find herself anxious and inclined to procrastinate, but actually, she finds that she isn't at all nervous about this next stage. She knows it will hurt, but it will be bearable, and Bellamy will do a good job. It's the bit that comes later, where he walks out into a wasteland that will kill him if she fails, that's the bit she's terrified of.

"You about ready?" He asks her now.

"Absolutely."

"OK then." He still looks like he's not ready, for all that he's holding the drill and has a syringe ready to go.

"You have to promise me you'll get it done no matter what. Even if I start screaming and it's horrible, you have to promise me you'll go through with it."

"I promise."

"Now stop putting it off and get on with it."

"OK. Here goes."

It hurts like hell, even through the numbing shot. No amount of local anaesthetic can mitigate the way that she can feel the drill vibrating through every bone of her body, and if she's honest it barely makes a dent in the searing pain. All the same, she thinks, there is something refreshing about having only immediate agony to think about, rather than fear and loss and the great outdoors. And then it's over, and Bellamy is dressing her wound and handing her a syringe and pulling her into a quick hug and telling her how proud he is of his brave Princess.

As it happens, she's never been more proud of him than this moment.

…...

Harper represses a groan as Monty dishes up the morning algae. Raven makes no attempt to repress hers, being rather less interested in being kind to their designated chef for rather obvious reasons. And, really, she can agree that the sludge is disgusting, but it's better than starving to death. And Monty works hard to keep them all fed.

And at least this batch seems unlikely to kill anyone.

Obviously, Murphy isn't actually dead, but it was a worryingly close call and he did only take one spoonful. Now, two weeks later, he's up and about again and she thinks Monty might almost have forgiven himself.

He's still insisting on testing every single meal himself, though, before he'll let the rest of them eat, and really, it's getting a bit wearing. They've got the point now. He's sorry he accidentally poisoned Murphy, and the food is safe. Enough is enough.

She doesn't make a big scene of it, because she's Harper McIntyre, and she prefers to make a stand in a slightly more pragmatic way, but she picks up a spoon and takes a bite. And then another. And another, even thought it's revolting.

Across the table from her, Echo gets the idea and does the same. Good. Her new friend does seem to catch on quickly.

In the next seat along, Murphy gives a shrug and joins them. Emori looks a bit reluctant, clearly still somewhat traumatised by what happened the other week, but she doesn't argue, and picks up her spoon.

Monty, meanwhile, looks up from the pan to hand Raven her bowl, and sees what is going on, and is less than pleased.

"What's this? I haven't tested it yet!"

"We're eating, Monty." She tells him calmly.

"But it might not be safe!" He's normally rather quicker on the uptake than this, she seems to remember.

"No one's dead yet." Murphy offers helpfully.

"This is not a joking matter, Murphy!"

"Hey, don't yell at me. Harper started it."

"You... you did?"

"Yes." She confirms briskly. "It's perfectly safe, Monty, and everyone knows it's perfectly safe. It's all very well you wanting to be self-sacrificing and apologetic, but there's no need for this stupid routine at every meal."

"What she said." Murphy backs her up as only Murphy can.

"I agree." Echo chimes in.

"Can we stop arguing and eat now? This stuff may be gross, but I'm hungry." Raven adds less than helpfully.

Monty looks a bit dazed, she thinks, but she expects he'll get over it. He mostly does once he realises she's got his best interests at heart.

"Hey, Monty, reckon you could turn this stuff into moonshine?" Murphy asks, breaking the tension in his typical fashion.

"Have you met me?" He asks by way of reply, and the light returns to his eyes, and with that they all know that there will be algae-derived alcohol at the dinner table within a matter of days.

This is almost, Harper thinks, starting to feel like home.

…...

Bellamy goes to make a start on packing for the move out of here while Clarke processes the bone marrow, leaving her with the crutches and strict instructions to yell if she needs anything at all. It turns out fairly early on that packing is a complete lie, and that all he manages to do is put away the things he left in her room last night. Thankfully he doesn't have to pretend to do anything useful for long. Scarcely an hour has passed when he hears her voice and he rushes back into the lab.

She's holding out a syringe and wearing a triumphant expression, and while he might not know much about medicine, he's fairly sure he knows what that means.

"You're done already?"

"I've been done a while, I just wanted to triple check everything."

"Well. OK then."

It seems silly to delay any longer, so he holds out his arm, and she administers the injection, and then that's that. It's all strangely anticlimactic, he thinks.

"All done." She tells him with a smile.

"So now we play chess." He was, after all, rather thoroughly briefed on the plan over breakfast. They are to play chess for a couple of hours until his blood changes colour. And then he is to go and stand outside and try not to die. As plans go, it is disarmingly simple, for all that it involves avoiding death by radiation.

"Now we play chess." She agrees, and reaches for her crutches.

He's not having that, though, when he's right here to help her. No, it won't do at all. He scoops her into his arms and carries her to the living room and she giggles all the while, with an almost un-Clarke-like sense of levity. He could get used to this life, he thinks. A shame, then, that within the week they'll be clearing out of here to set out into the unknown.

"What was the point of making crutches if I'm not allowed to use them?" She asks through her laughter.

He ignores her in favour of placing her gently down on a chair and arranging the chess board to his satisfaction. She insists that, in fact, the minor inconvenience of a hole in her hip does not stop her from setting up her own chess pieces, and he grudgingly relents, and they pass the next couple of hours in such a beautifully carefree atmosphere that he's pretty certain they have both allowed themselves to forget what comes next.

But, finally, it can be put off no longer and she tells him it's time to go back to the lab. She takes a sample of his blood, and it's black, and he rather thought that was all that was needed but she insists that it's more complicated than that and proceeds to do various tests that are completely beyond his comprehension. And then, at last, she declares herself satisfied and looks at him expectantly.

"So we're going outside?" He asks her, trying not to betray his nerves. He's hardly going to convince her that he trusts her completely if she can see that he's more than a little apprehensive about this stroll.

"We're going outside." She confirms, and reaches for her crutches.

"Can I at least carry you up the stairs?" He asks petulantly, and she laughs.

"Sure. But I'm taking these with me as well. I should probably see whether they work on sand." He doesn't disagree, but simply scoops her up into his arms and sets out for the doors.

"Do we need to do anything else?" He asks her. "It feels like this should be a more complex operation, not just open the doors and out we go."

"We're just checking you can handle the radiation." She reminds him, although she must know he knows. "When I said we weren't staying out long, I meant it."

"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me." They reach the doors, and he sets her down carefully, and she staggers a little before finding her balance on her good leg and the crutches. He opens the first door, and then closes it, and then opens the outer door, and then he's outside.

It hits him all at once just how much he's missed the ground. The wind is whipping at his cheeks, and the sun is just a little too hot on the back of his neck, and the smell in the air is of the charred remains of Praimfaiya but it is all far too beautiful for him to let that ruin his day. He turns in a circle, feeling more than a little dazed, and wonders how it is that this is even better than the first time he walked on the Earth on leaving that dropship all those months ago.

"Are you OK there?" She asks with a grin.

"I've missed this." He tells her, voice slightly raw from emotion.

"You've missed a desert?" She asks him, brows raised.

"No, just – the ground. The fresh air. The open space."

"Yeah. I can see that. I shouldn't tease you, I was like that yesterday. For the first five minutes, then I realised I needed to get going." He laughs at that, because it's so Clarke, to be using her head rather than celebrating her freedom. "How are you feeling?" She looks concerned, and fights with her crutches sinking through the sand to hop over to him.

"Fine. Would I know by now if I wasn't fine?"

"I'm not sure, it's not as if I have a lot of experience on this. I think we'd probably know by now if it really hadn't worked at all."

"Well, there we go then. It hasn't not worked."

"Something like that. We should probably head in now."

"I don't want to." He tells her, aware that he's being less than helpful, but enjoying the sensation of being outside too much to care.

"Bellamy, come on. We agreed you wouldn't stay out too long."

"I feel great, Clarke. I can stay a bit longer."

"No, we should go in."

"Now you need to stop fussing." He tries to tease her with a grin, but she suddenly looks absolutely horrified, and as he opens his mouth to ask her what's wrong he realises he can taste blood, and he's pretty sure that wasn't part of the plan.

"You need to get inside." She's telling him. "Now." He doesn't argue, because he is in fact starting to feel distinctly unwell. It's probably just the taste of blood that is making him feel so suddenly nauseous, he tells himself. He staggers over to the doors while she hobbles alongside, and wonders when exactly he started staggering.

He stops wondering anything, much, once he's inside the outer door, because he's a bit busy vomiting. He's feeling really quite rough, now, so he decides it's probably best if he sits down. Just for a little while.

The last thing he sees is Clarke's worried face hovering over him.

…...

He comes round lying on the floor, soaking wet, with his cheek pressed into the carpet, and even though he feels awful, he still manages to laugh.

"There's really nothing funny about this." He hears Clarke's voice chastising him.

"I disagree. I'm getting deja vu. Except yesterday, I seem to remember you were the one lying on this damp piece of carpet and I was the one fussing."

"You don't know yet that I'm going to fuss."

"You definitely are."

"You're right." She agrees, and rearranges him so that his head is in her lap. He's not sure about this development, partly because it seems like she probably shouldn't be straining herself to move him when she's hurt, and partly because he recently threw up and he's not sure he wants her to touch him in his current revolting state. "There we go, you're no longer on the carpet. Happy?"

"I think so. What went wrong?"

"I don't think anything did. If you'd actually read those notes I gave you about Luna, and thought back to my first couple of days here, you'd know that it's normal to be quite ill the first time you get exposed to the radiation before your nightblood starts to kick in."

"I did read them." He defends himself ineffectually while she smooths his sodden hair away from his rather disgustingly sweaty forehead. He's pretty sure he would prefer it if she weren't seeing him at his worst like this.

"Anyway, I think you'll be OK." She continues as if he hadn't spoken. "We'd know by now if not. You'll probably feel sick for a bit like I did."

"I seem to remember you also slept a lot."

"Yes. Are you feeling tired?"

"Exhausted." He admits. "Also rather pathetic."

"You're fine." She reassures him affectionately. "Have a nap, if you want."

He sort of wants to say no, to show her that he's strong and stubborn and doesn't need her to fuss, but a nap does sound lovely. In fact, he thinks, it is starting to sound more than lovely. It is starting to sound necessary.

…...

When he wakes up again, his head is still in her lap, and she is still stroking his forehead, and he's beginning to think that she must be quite fond of him to be putting up with all this. He's a bit embarrassed, really. He's not sure anyone's ever had to look after him like this before. And if there's one thing he's certain of, it's that looking after other people is a fairly core part of his identity. Then again, if anyone can turn his world on its head and get away with it, he supposes it's probably Clarke.

"Are you still here?" He asks her, his discomfort making him more gruff than he intended.

"Well I wasn't going to leave you to lie here feeling awful on your own." She tells him briskly.

"Thank you." It's inadequate, but he supposes it'll have to do.

"You're welcome. Do you want to have a go at making it back to your room?"

"Yeah. And I'm definitely having a shower." He needs to clean up a little before she resumes her fussing.

"Are you going to be OK walking there and sorting yourself out on your own?"

"Yeah. Thanks." He can't have her seeing him sunk any lower than this.

"I'm going to go get some water and some snacks. I don't think there's much hope of me cooking and then carrying a full meal on crutches, I'm afraid."

"That's fine, I still feel like I'm about to throw up anyway." He tells her cheerfully as she hops away in the direction of the stairs.

The walk to his room isn't easy, as such, but it's more than possible and he only leans against the wall seeing stars twice. It's the process of showering, which has never before seemed so longwinded, that proves a test of his endurance, and in the end he gives up and just sits on the floor of the shower, letting the water wash over him, until he can summon the strength to haul himself to his feet and towel off and put on some clothes. He tries very hard not to look as though he is on the verge of collapse as he walks back to his bed, but he is plainly unsuccessful. She doesn't say anything about it, though, clearly realising he wants to pretend to have some dignity, but simply gets on with arranging the bedclothes and pillows around him and handing him a canteen of water.

"I brought fruit mix, too, if you're feeling ready for food?"

"No thanks. Not any time soon."

"Fair enough. I'll eat it." She makes herself at home sitting up against the pillows on the side of the bed that he already somehow thinks of as hers, for all that she has only spent one night there. He finds himself presuming that she'll sleep there again, although he's not altogether sure why. Somehow it just feels likely.

"I'm sorry I threw up." He tells her in some embarrassment.

"Not a problem. The decon shower took care of the mess." She responds cheerfully.

He lets the silence grow for a while, not really sure what to say that can do justice to his gratitude for everything she's done for him today, from helping him to be strong before the bone marrow extraction through to cradling his head in her lap and now being so unfazed by his illness. It really is true, he reflects, that there is nothing they cannot cope with together.

"Regretting not getting into that rocket yet?" She teases him after the silence has grown a little too long. "I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be vomiting up there."

"I'd rather be vomiting here with you than facing five years without you." He tells her firmly. It is, he thinks, at least a little bit of a declaration of love, and she seems to understand that, based on the way she leans into his shoulder.

"Five years would have been a long time on my own, I think."

"Five years would have been a long time to wonder whether you were even still alive."

"I was thinking about that." She says thoughtfully. "We should find some way to contact them once we're out of here. I don't think the radios are going to be much use to us." He nods, because he remembers them cutting out just before the death wave and Raven saying that the radiation would block the signal.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Remember the flares? That night we first had a civil conversation?" He wraps his arm around her at that memory.

"Good thinking. At least that way they'd know we're not dead."

"Exactly." She busies herself with crumpling her fruit packet and tossing it onto his bedside cabinet while he tries not to yawn. "Do you want to do anything this evening or do you want to rest?"

"I'm not sure I'm feeling up to doing much. Sorry." As if to prove his point, a yawn breaks through.

"Don't apologise. I just thought I should check."

"You can go find something more interesting to do, if you want. Sitting here watching me drink water and fall asleep won't be exciting"

"I'm staying right here." She tells him sounding, he thinks, a bit fierce and very much like the Clarke he knows so well.

"That sounds good to me." He tells her with a smile that turns into another yawn.

"Get some sleep." She encourages him gently, taking the canteen from his hands. "I'll be here if you need anything."

"You'll stay?" He asks, trying not to sound too much like a pleading child as he presses a soft kiss to her forehead and begins to rearrange himself for sleep.

"If you want me to." She confirms, pulling the duvet up around his shoulders.

"Of course I do." He reaches out for her hand and hugs it into his chest.

"Then I'm not going anywhere." She promises.

He drifts into sleep comforted by the thought that their days of leaving one another are apparently very much behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	27. Chapter twenty seven

Bellamy wakes up once during the night, at some scarcely-recalled nightmare about someone he loves meeting some premature end, and is disappointed to find that Clarke is very much on the other side of the mattress, about as far away as it is possible to get in this bed, their only point of contact her hand wrapped softly around his forearm. But then he looks at her, really looks in the dim light that the crack under the door lets in, and takes in the angle of her neck and the placement of her head and realises that, in fact, she must have fallen asleep watching him.

Suddenly she doesn't feel quite so far away.

When he wakes up the following morning, she is propped up on one elbow, looking at him with a furrowed brow that suggests she's been waiting for him to stir for quite some time.

"Morning." He mutters, throat feeling strangely dry. Perhaps it takes longer than one night to recover from radiation sickness, he wonders.

"Morning. How are you feeling? You slept a lot longer than usual."

"Yes. I guessed that. I don't feel too bad, actually, just tired and thirsty."

"Here." She offers him some water with a smile.

"Thanks. So, what's the plan for today?"

"I think that's up to you, really. I'd rather you didn't keel over from attempting to do everything all at once when you're still sick."

"I wasn't aware there was that much left to do." He says with a shrug. "As we're sticking together, we don't need to work out how to divide the supplies, and now we've got a rover surely we can carry everything we could possibly want."

"You may have a point there. We do still need to plan a route though." He sees her take a deep breath before she asks. "Are we going via Polis?"

"No." After all, he is supposed to be practising using his head. "I think it's much more sensible for us to go straight home to find out what it's like and get settled. Once we have a house and a steady supply of food and water, then we can think about going on an expedition to Polis."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"OK then."

"So let's plan a route today. That sounds like a good activity when you can barely walk and I still feel a bit grim. Then tomorrow we pack, the following day we head out of here?"

"The day after tomorrow. That's quite soon." He knows she's worrying about the state of his health, calculating whether he will be fully recovered by then.

"What can I say? Home sweet home and a flock of chickens are calling to me."

They continue to daydream about domestic bliss for a couple of minutes until he decides it's about time for him to start moving and make them some breakfast. After all, he doesn't want Clarke to try to do it, between the fact that she's still stuck hopping everywhere and that he prefers his porridge edible. She tries to protest, to encourage him to rest a bit longer, but his pride won't stand for this any more. He's getting up and getting on with things.

It turns out, a couple of minutes after getting up, that he isn't really getting on with things. Clarke has left his room so they can both have a bit of privacy to get changed but all he's managed to achieve so far is to lever himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and, well, sit there. Neither his clothes nor the bathroom can be more than six paces away, but right now six seems like a very big number.

"Bellamy? You doing OK?" How is it possible that she is already finished and has found her way back to knock on his door, currently incapacitated as she is?

"Yeah. I'm fine." He lies cheerfully. "Just taking my time. You hop along, I'll be downstairs soon."

"OK. Take care."

Well. Now that he's told her he'll be there soon, he supposes he probably ought to keep his word.

…...

Clarke is no idiot, and knows full well that Bellamy still feels like absolute crap, because she has, in fact, experienced the same symptoms herself. That was only a month ago, so he must think that she has a terrible memory. And clearly he must drastically overrate his own acting abilities, if he thinks he's fooling her at all.

But, then again, she knows what's really going on here. It'd take more than a bit of radiation sickness to get him to admit that he's struggling. She feels honoured, really, that he let her take care of him yesterday even as much as he did - she's pretty sure she's the only person ever to make a fuss of Bellamy Blake and get away with it. Knowing that there is no point standing at his door and making him feel uncomfortable, she makes her laborious way down the stairs and into the kitchen, where she sets about carefully arranging everything so that he has to do as little as possible when he gets here.

He does look quite a bit more human when he arrives some minutes later, hair a tousled mess and smile surprisingly bright.

"You seem happy."

"We're both still alive. We're going home the day after tomorrow." He explains with a shrug. "And I managed to put my own socks on, and for a while that wasn't looking likely so it feels like an achievement."

"I'd have helped, you know. I am more or less a doctor, I've seen worse things than your feet."

"You already did help, Clarke. More than you know." He drops a soft kiss onto the crown of her head and she has a feeling they're no longer just talking about socks.

With that, he makes a start on breakfast, and although it's evident that he's moving more effortfully than she would like, she is relieved to see that he's perfectly up to the task. She consumes her food a little slower than usual, keeping pace with his apparent reluctance to eat, but she doesn't mention it. No good will come of pointing out that he's feeling nauseous if he's chosen not to tell her himself. Just as they're both done, she affects a burning need to start a conversation, keen to encourage him to sit here a little longer before rushing on to the next stage of their day.

"What do you think we should take with us?" She asks as if the question has only just occurred to her. "There are so many things here that might be useful beyond the obvious things like food and medical supplies."

"Let's only take the things we expect to need for now, with the rover we can always come back here for supplies if we find ourselves facing any new problems."

"Good thinking."

"Let's also take a few things we expect to want." He suggests as well. "Like a chess board, a small selection of books."

"A small selection." She cautions him with a laugh. "That sounds reasonable. It does feel weird taking things that belonged to someone else, but I suppose we're probably past worrying about that, what with the world ending and all."

"I would say so." He seems to have had enough of her stalling tactics now, as he stacks their bowls and gets to his feet. "Can I carry you to the lab?" He asks, as if he didn't recently admit to struggling to dress himself this morning.

"No." She tells him firmly, brandishing her crutches. "Absolutely not."

His face falls and for a moment she thinks he might argue, but for once it seems he is inclined to see reason. Instead of attempting to carry her, he decides to carry only the dirty dishes as he leaves the room.

…...

Clarke is apparently trying to be slightly subtle about fussing over him, so Bellamy decides not to call her out on it. If he's truly honest with himself, he's feeling too moved by her behaviour, by the combination of deep concern and care wrapped up in business as usual, to be inclined to make a scene. And, OK, maybe a little bit of him is rather flattered by this obvious evidence of his importance to her.

He might not like feeling helpless, but it turns out he does quite like the idea that there is now someone in his life to help him when he needs it. And one of the things she's putting quite a lot of effort into helping him with is feeling useful – by allowing him to cook breakfast, by encouraging him to take the lead on their route planning activities for the day, by asking him to be a good companion and play chess with her for the greater part of the afternoon. He's feeling a fair bit better now, actually, but he's not sure whether he's going to have much luck with convincing her of that. In the end, he decides to take matters into his own hands – quite literally – and scoops her up in his arms to carry her towards their chess match.

"What are you doing?" She squeals, equal parts concern and indignation, and he notes that he has, it seems, managed to take her by surprise.

"Carrying you." He states, accurately but unhelpfully.

"I thought you were supposed to be resting."

"I've done some resting. Now I'm saying thank you for looking after me."

"There are easier ways to thank me." She grumbles, but the fight has gone out of her and she seems resigned to her situation. No, that's not true, she's definitely smirking. She seems happy with her situation.

"Yes." He confirms. "But I like this way." With that, he sets her down in a chair and proceeds to enjoy an afternoon of losing at chess.

…...

Clarke decides she is cooking that evening. They both like soup, and she likes the idea of Bellamy sitting down and getting some rest. To be fair, he is making a quick recovery, seeming more like his usual self with every passing hour, but she's not quite ready to give up on trying to make his day easier just yet.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Princess?" Bellamy asks with a playful quirk to his brow. "We're supposed to be moving house the day after tomorrow and I don't want us both laid low with food poisoning."

"I'm sure you can't get food poisoning from dehydrated soup." She argues back and cracks on with cooking, leaving him to take a seat on the stool next to the counter that she usually occupies.

He proceeds to spend the next twenty minutes alternating between asking after her hip and offering her a wide range of snippets of unsolicited advice. He starts with easy targets such as whether she has read the instructions and whether she has measured the correct amount of water, but about half way through he decides that there is such a thing as cooking the soup at too high a temperature and she just can't take that seriously.

"What are you on about? It's supposed to boil. It is boiling."

"Yes, but far too quickly. It'll stick on the bottom like that."

"Good." She announces firmly. "It'll be like that pasta you burned the other day." She makes a show of ignoring his pleas to turn down the heat, but when he sticks his head into the ration cupboard to look for crackers, she does it quickly while he can't see.

Of course, because she cooked supper, he insists on washing up afterwards, and she puts up only a half-hearted objection before allowing herself to be overruled. It is now her turn to take a seat on her favourite stool, and while he merrily prattles away about how he might even go crazy and teach her to cook stew next she allows herself to dream of the life they will live together in their new home. She wonders whether it will always be like this, with the cheerful chatter and the warm hugs. She hopes that maybe there might be even better things yet to come. She likes to think that, one day, she might be able to put into words everything that this remarkable man means to her, for all that she's not usually one to let her heart do the talking.

He invites her to choose the film, in spite of their old chess deal, telling her it's a thank you for cooking dinner and looking after him since yesterday afternoon. She seems to remember that carrying her around for the afternoon was supposed to be her thanks, but she's not arguing, because he'd never choose Pride and Prejudice for himself and she is growing a little fed up with the odd assortment of ancient history and his little sister's favourites. On the other hand, she's beginning to realise she'd watch pretty much anything if she could watch it from the comfort of Bellamy's arms.

"When you said you wanted Pride and Prejudice, which one did you mean?" He asks, scrolling through their digital library, and she briefly convinces herself to look at the TV rather than his jawline.

"What do you mean?" She asks, confused by the question.

"There are about half a dozen here. They seem to have done several different adaptations throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."

"So I think this sounds like the perfect project for my favourite Earth culture nerd." She suggests to him. "We can watch all of them, and compare." She thinks the look he shoots her way is supposed to be fierce, but it's unconvincing to say the least.

"Even if we were going to do that – which I'm pretty sure we're not – we do need to choose somewhere to start."

"That's the one I've watched before. The 2005 one. It's not very faithful to the book, to be fair, but the acting's good and Lizzie is still awesome, which is what counts."

"Decision made." He hits play, and she relaxes into her rightful place by his side as the familiar dialogue washes over her.

"You've got her beaten." He says, seemingly at random, about a third of the way in, and for a moment she thinks she must have misheard him.

"What?"

"Lizzie Bennet. You said she was awesome. She's not as awesome as you." She can't quite decide how to respond to a compliment that wide-ranging. She sort of wants to jump for joy, because Elizabeth Bennet has always been something of a hero of hers, and also because this long-dead actress is seriously hot, and somehow in her mind that sort of features in this equation too.

She realises she has been silent a little too long, and whispers her thanks to him, adding in a rather overenthusiastic squeeze of her arm around his waist for good measure. She wonders about braving a kiss on his cheek, because that does seem to be the kind of thing they do now, but decides against it. After all, he's always been a little more fluent at heartfelt gestures than she has.

They talk a little more after that, laughing at the pomposity of Mr Collins or the snobbish attitude of Miss Bingley, and she thinks she can feel his face periodically nuzzling into the top of her hair, but she doesn't want to get her hopes up. At one point he suggests that this film is so mushy he wants to vomit, but she cheerfully tells him that she thinks that's just a residual effect of the radiation sickness and is pleased to startle a laugh from him in response. He has nothing bad to say about the film apart from that, even about the bit where they realise they're in love in the middle of loads of inexplicable mist, and that makes her very happy because if he were genuinely out to pick holes she's pretty sure that would be an easy target.

It takes her a while to realise that, in fact, a large part of the reason he says nothing about the mist is that he has fallen asleep.

She's not quite sure what to do about this development, because she knows that if she fell asleep he would carry her upstairs, but there's no way she's going to be able to manage that. She places a gentle hand on his shoulder and calls his name softly.

"Sorry." He mutters as he blinks himself awake.

"Don't be. Come on, let's get you up to bed." She gets to her feet and juggles the combination of leaning on her crutches and helping him up off the sofa. Their journey up the stairs is slow to say the least, but they eventually arrive at the door to his room. She follows him inside, whether because she wants to check on him as he gets settled or because she presumes she's staying the night she can't quite tell.

She sees it as soon as she enters the room. There, on the pillow that she has used the last two nights, is a bundle of clothing that looks suspiciously like the shorts and T shirt she has been sleeping in of late. When he put it there, she doesn't know, but it hardly seems likely that her pyjamas have ended up in his room by chance.

Well, then. It looks like that decision has just been made easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	28. Chapter twenty eight

Bellamy isn't sure how he feels about leaving this place where they have grown together and where they are safe and at least a little bit content. He tells himself that it will be worth it when they make their perfect home together in their perfect valley, but he can't help but feel somewhat apprehensive at the thought of all the Other Unforeseen Hazards that feature in this stage of his five year plan.

Of one thing, however, he is absolutely certain, and that is that the existence of the rover and therefore the potential to carry everything they could ever want has made them rather lazy with their packing. They've got all of the rations and plenty of water for the journey, and Clarke reassures him that she's taking charge of the medical supplies, but apart from that they've just spent the day arbitrarily adding their own choice of items to the growing pile next to the doors that will be loaded into the vehicle before they leave tomorrow morning. Clarke is making her way there now, struggling with a bag of clothes which is evidently too heavy for her to balance while she's still hobbling everywhere.

"Here, let me." He takes her luggage as well as his own and they walk the last few paces side by side.

"Thanks. Are we nearly done, do you think?"

"Yeah. I hope so, I want to call it a day and play chess." He pouts a little and is rewarded by her ready laugh as he deposits both of their bags.

"We should load the rover first." She reminds him as she starts to look through the items by the door, apparently attempting to ascertain what each piece of luggage actually contains.

"I suppose we should." He agrees, slightly nervously, because he can see what's about to happen.

"What's this?" She asks, peering into a box he loaded a couple of hours ago.

Well. He knew this was coming.

"It's a TV." He tells her, because that's what it is. "The smallest one I could find. Also speakers, and a memory chip with our digital library on. All of which can run off the solar generator you already packed."

"We're driving out of here tomorrow to live in the middle of a nuclear disaster zone and you've packed a TV." She doesn't even bother phrasing it as a question.

"Yes." He confirms. "We've still got some adaptations of Pride and Prejudice to watch. It's an important project."

"I want it noted that this is not a sensible or necessary thing to pack." He is fairly sure that the tone of her voice indicates affection rather than annoyance, but it is perhaps too early to be sure.

"I agree. It is neither sensible nor necessary. If we don't have space for everything we need, we should leave it behind."

"We'll have space." She tells him decisively, and he knows he has won. "I can always make space for movie night."

"Good. I brought winter clothes too, just to prove I can pack usefully." She smacks him jovially on the arm at that.

"Stop making excuses and get this lot in the rover."

…...

Echo doesn't not sleep, she maintains. The extent to which she stays awake at night is in no way worrying, she's just the last to bed. That is how things are. She was trained always to be alert, after all, in her previous life.

And really, that's all she does when she sits up in the evenings. She's just being alert, keeping an eye on her home down below. There's no fire, these days, but not much of anything else either. A lot of wasteland is on view even from this distance. There is one note of hope, though, in the patch of green that seems to have survived not a million miles from her old home. She knows that, before too long, they'll find their way back there, but in the mean time, she will have to watch over the Earth from on high.

She hears the noise of footsteps approaching and wonders who it can possibly be. It's almost time for her to be thinking about turning in for the night, so she would expect all of her crewmates to be long since asleep.

"Echo?" Of course, it is Harper's voice.

"Hi."

"How's she looking?" Her friend gestures to the planet, clearly unsurprised by her occupation.

"Still there." She says with a wry smile.

"It'll be OK, Echo. We'll get back there, and that patch of green will be beautiful. And Monty has some grand scheme to refertilise all of the wasteland with his damn algae."

She laughs at that. "Of course he does. He's not a man I could love, but I can see why you do."

"I'm lucky to have him."

"He's luckier to have you." She pauses for a moment, because that wasn't quite what she wanted to convey, and tries again. "I think we're all lucky to have each other, up here."

…...

Dawn is just beginning to streak the sky as Bellamy helps Clarke into the passenger seat of the rover and makes his way over to the driver's side door. They have checked everything that can possibly be checked at least three times, and added several more items to the luggage in the back of the rover just in case, and there is nothing more to do but drive out through the doors and onto the open plain before them.

Actually, there is one more thing to do.

He leans across in his seat and places a soft kiss on her cheek. He worries that, perhaps, it's a little lingering for a friendly cheek kiss between friends, but he doesn't think he can bring himself to regret that. After all, they really are very friendly friends, these days.

"For luck." He tells her, not meeting her eyes, as he pulls away.

"Very sensible." She agrees, tone light. "You never know what might be waiting out there."

With that, he starts to drive.

Thankfully he realises only seconds later that there is yet another thing to do as he needs to hop out and close the outer doors. They have agreed that it is wise to keep the bunker safely sealed, because if there is one thing they have learnt about this plant, it is that a reliable supply of fully sealed nuclear bunkers is a useful thing to have.

But then, at last, there is nothing but the open plain before him and he starts to drive them home. Clarke gets the speakers in the rover playing a selection of their favourite kitchen party music and all in all, the atmosphere is at least a little bit festive. They swap places a couple of times during the day so that they can keep driving without either of them becoming too exhausted, keen to cover ground as quickly as possible. But, eventually, as they predicted, night starts to fall while they are still a handful of hours from home.

"I think we should stop soon." She suggests, turning the music down so they can have a coherent conversation.

"We've made faster progress than we expected. I think we should press on. We can definitely get there before the battery runs out, it'll only be a couple of hours after dark." He's so excited now, at the prospect of nearing their goal, that he doesn't really want to spend a night camping out in a rover in the middle of a fire-ravaged forest. They could sleep in a real bed tonight, in a real home, on the ground.

"Bellamy, we said we'd stop one night on the road and we should stick to the plan. It doesn't seem sensible to even risk draining the battery on the rover. And I don't want to arrive there in the dark, who knows what we'll find? At least if we arrive tomorrow morning we've got almost the whole day to settle in."

He takes a deep breath. Clarke is being Clarke, and reciting the plan at him, and reminding him of all of the logical things he agreed to when he was less caught up in the moment.

He can't disappoint her again.

"OK. You're right. I suppose we may as well stop here." After all, there is no requirement to pull out of the way of nonexistent traffic. He brings the rover to a halt, and turns towards her.

She is looking at him with no small amount of awe, having clearly expected that conversation to prove more challenging. "Thanks." She says simply.

They grab a quick supper of crackers and water and he finds himself hoping that, by this time tomorrow, they will have had some luck hunting. He misses real food. He also really misses the luxurious beds in the bunker, he thinks, as he tries to get comfy enough to grab a few hours sleep in his seat.

"Goodnight, Clarke." He reaches out to hug her as best as he can given the inconveniences of their current situation.

"Night, Bellamy." As she pulls away she surprises him by kissing him softly on his jaw, much as she kissed him all those months ago after Mount Weather.

He doesn't like that thought, he decides, doesn't like to remember her leaving him. Instinctively, as he remembers that horrible day and wonders what the future has in store for them, he finds his hand reaching out over the space in between them.

Of course, she isn't going anywhere this time. Her hand meets his half way.

…...

When they arrive at the village late the following morning Bellamy insists that she stays in the rover while he checks out the surrounding area.

"You never know what Other Unforeseen Hazards might be out here." He reminds her, and she wonders at his odd choice of words. "And you can't walk properly."

"Stay close. Please. Don't try to do anything heroic." He gulps a little at that and she's not quite sure why.

"I'll be sensible, I promise. I'll be back as soon as I've had a quick look round. Don't go anywhere."

She sits in the rover and occupies herself with tying a few snares she reckons she might use to catch them some supper if he ever lets her out of here, and he comes back sooner than she expected with a firm set to his brow.

"What's wrong?" She ignores his earlier instruction and jumps out of the rover to close the space between them.

"The villagers were in the church together when the radiation hit." He tells her, and she is too perceptive to misunderstand what that means.

"Oh my god. I'm sorry, Bellamy. I should have been with you."

"No, no it's OK. I just came back to tell you that... well, that's where I'll be for the afternoon. I'm going to build a pyre, carry the bodies to it. I think it might take me a while."

"It might take us a while." She says, because she can't let him do this alone. "I'm helping."

"No. No, Clarke." She thinks his voice is possibly the firmest she has ever heard it as he insists on this. "I'm going to do this, because you're still hobbling. You can have a go at unpacking some of our things, maybe make us some food. But... this is something you cannot help me with."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely sure. I'll see you later. You know where I am if you need me." He pulls her into a tight hug and holds her for just a moment too long before he sets off to complete his grim mission and leaves her there, staring at his retreating back and wishing there were some way for her to make this better.

She decides she can at least be of practical help, so she sets those snares she was working on in places where she thinks that any small animal that survived the radiation might plausibly be found. The houses are, of course, all full of personal belongings left behind by the previous occupants, and she wonders how it is that this is a surprise to her when it is, on reflection, so obvious that it would be the case. She allows herself to weep for a while at the thought of living in a dead family's home - it might be nothing compared with what Bellamy is facing at this moment, but a little grief still feels appropriate. When she has cried herself out, she chooses the emptiest house and begins to move in their things.

She doesn't stop to question why she puts both of their possessions in one double room. That is just the way things are now.

Towards the end of the afternoon, growing uncomfortable with making herself at home in a house still haunted by Praimfaiya, she goes to check her snares, finds a rabbit, and occupies herself with the task of skinning it and doing a mediocre job of roasting it over a small fire. By the time she is done it is growing dark and there is still no sign of Bellamy. That's not surprising, in itself, because she imagines that for a village of this size there are probably several dozen corpses for him to carry out of the church. But there is smoke rising from where he must have built the funeral pyre, so she knows he is finished with his task. She wonders about going to look for him, but figures that if he's not here now he probably doesn't want to be found quite yet. On that basis, she eats her supper and sits on the doorstep of their new home to wait for him.

In the end, he shows up about an hour later, evidently having recently taken a dip in the nearby river.

"Are you OK?" She asks, feeling woefully inadequate.

"Yeah." He says, and does not elaborate. She offers him a portion of the rabbit and he takes and eats it in silence, sitting slightly too close to her on the cold step.

"Shall we go to bed?" She suggests at length, not sure what to make of the exhausted grief in his eyes. He nods, and follows her into their home. They get themselves ready for sleep and she takes her place on her side of the mattress, rather presuming from his manner that he will be out like a light today, instantly and silently.

He surprises her, then, by wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her against him a little fiercely, her back against his chest, his entire body curled around hers, and she can feel his face nuzzling into the back of her neck.

"That was horrific." He tells her simply, and she is beyond relieved that he's finally found the words to talk about it.

"I can't even begin to imagine it." She tells him, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. "I'm sorry I wasn't there with you."

"I wouldn't have wanted you to be. Thanks for getting the house sorted while I was gone."

"You're welcome."

Silence settles over them for a long moment and she wonders if perhaps he has fallen asleep, but then he speaks up once again. "You know what the most stupid thing is? Even while I was doing the most unpleasant task of my life, I was worrying about you. That thing you said, about not doing anything heroic. It reminded me of the last conversation I had with Gina."

"I'm so sorry, Bellamy. I didn't know. I didn't mean -"

"I know. I just... I'm not losing you." He holds her even tighter at that, which she's pretty sure she didn't think was possible until now.

"I'm right here. And I'm staying right here." She promises, entwining her fingers with his own.

She never asks him how many bodies he bodies he burned that day. She doesn't need to. She can read in the way he is holding her that the only answer he would be prepared to share would be far too many.

...

She sleeps well as she has done every since she started sharing his bed, and she is pleased to note that he has a peaceful night too, which surprises her given his obvious distress after his horrific task. The following morning they grab a quick breakfast and, much more cheerful than the previous evening, he announces his intention of going out to explore the area around their new home.

"I want to come too." She tells him, bored of being left behind. "I can more or less walk now."

"Being able to more or less walk, with the aid of a crutch, around the house, is not the same as being fit for an expedition, Princess." He tucks a stray curl of hair behind her ear as she pouts at his refusal. "Unpack your medical supplies. Draw the trees. I'll be back before you know it. And when you're fully fit I'll be able to give you a tour of all the best places in the area."

"OK." She huffs a little indignantly. "Don't have too much fun without me." It ought to sound teasing, that sentence, she thinks, but she can't quite manage it.

"As if I could." He grabs his pack and a rifle, kisses her almost briskly on the forehead, and sets out in the direction of the river.

He has barely been gone ten minutes when she hears him scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	29. Chapter twenty nine

Bellamy doesn't mind admitting that he's a little ashamed of having screamed. It just took him by surprise, this trap – one minute he was running after that young girl and the next thing he knew this blasted piece of rusted metal was clamped around his lower leg. And, of course, it's painful, but not really worth screaming over. Now slightly more in control of his wits, he pries the jaws of the trap open and starts limping for home. He had better get Clarke to stitch up this wound, he thinks, noting that there's a fair amount of blood.

Of course, that child is now long gone, and his chance to find out who she is, lost.

He has barely made it a hundred metres when he hears someone approaching, but he doesn't think it can be the girl because he's pretty sure she went in the other direction. Presuming, therefore, that it's some kind of wild animal, he swings his rifle onto his shoulder and attempts to convince himself that he can still shoot with some degree of competence whilst blood courses from the shredded skin of his calf and his entire body begins to tremble with shock.

He is absolutely stunned to find that the noise is Clarke running lopsidedly towards him.

"What are you doing here?" He calls out as soon as he realises it is her.

"I heard you scream. Are you OK? What happened to your leg?" She's still trying to run and he really doesn't like that.

"Clarke. Stop. I'll be fine. I just got caught in a stupid trap."

"How did you end up in a trap?"

"I was following a child. We can worry about that later. Can we get home so you can see to my leg?"

"Of course." She still looks rather frazzled, he thinks, and not entirely in control of the situation. It is at the very least unusual for him to be the one suggesting a plan while she is at a loss.

They limp slowly home together, and he has to admit that, now the adrenaline is starting to fade, he is in really quite a lot of pain. He seems to be bleeding more heavily than he at first noticed, and the sight of a lot of unaccustomed black blood is beginning to make him feel a bit woozy. Thankfully by the time they make it back to the village Clarke seems to have regained her wits and she makes short work of cleaning the wound and preparing to sew his calf back together. The stitches themselves hurt like hell and he finds himself zoning out somewhat, so that he is a little slow on the uptake when she tells him she has finished and tries to bring his attention back to the present moment.

"All done. You were very lucky – no lasting damage, but a fair amount of blood loss."

"Yes. I think I noticed the blood loss." He smiles a little pathetically.

"You're doing nothing for the rest of the day." She tells him sternly. "I would normally suggest several days off your feet so you don't tear all those neat stitches I put in, but I know you'll never go for that so I suppose I'll just have to hope you have some sense."

"You're one to talk." He says sharply. "Rushing out there like that and reopening the wound in your hip – don't think I can't see that you're bleeding. What were you thinking?" He's aware that his concern is making him sound angry but there doesn't seem to be much he can do about it.

"I wasn't thinking, obviously." She snaps right back at him before looking away and continuing more softly, apparently unable to meet his eyes as she busies herself with tidying her medical supplies. "I was just... distraught. When I heard that scream I thought I was going to have to do this without you, and I realised I couldn't face that. I realised how much I need you." All at once the anger rushes out of him. He wonders if, perhaps, those might be the biggest words he'll ever hear from this woman who loved Finn only when he was dying and Lexa only when she was dead.

"Hey, Clarke." He reaches out for her hand and she stops her faffing to look up at him, tears in her eyes. "I'm not going to let that happen. I promise."

By way of response she takes a seat next to him and wraps him in her arms.

"Next time you hear me have a minor accident, though, could you maybe remember that you're supposed to be the tactical one and not rush in there like – well – like me?"

"Yeah. I think I'll try to avoid emotional overreactions in future. I've got you for that." She tells him affectionately and he rearranges himself a bit so that he can hold her tight, too.

"Remember that time I tried to rescue you from Roan and it went badly?" He can't resist reminding her of the day he disguised himself as an Azgeda warrior and got stabbed in the leg for his trouble.

"Always. I was still glad to see you, for what it's worth." She informs him with an upbeat lilt to her voice.

"I was still glad to see you today." He admits honestly, because for all his worry and displeasure, he will always be glad to see Clarke. "Less glad to see the blood, mind you. Are you going to put a new dressing on that?" He gestures to her hip.

"You definitely do fuss." She tells him cheerfully, but she does as he asks anyway.

…...

Clarke's a little ashamed of the panic she fell into when she heard Bellamy scream, if she's being honest. Panic is never a helpful reaction, whatever the danger. Thankfully, he's not seriously injured, and so her ill-thought-out rush towards the sound of his voice has done no one any harm.

"What's this you were saying about a child?" She asks eventually, as both of them are sitting on the bed side-by-side and wondering what to do with this day she insists he spends with his leg elevated.

"There's a girl out there. Dark haired, maybe aged about seven or so. Apparently pretty clever based on the fact she managed to lead me into a trap, and apparently a nightblood based on the fact she's still alive and running about the place."

"And apparently hostile." She adds thoughtfully, based on the fact that she wanted to lead Bellamy into a trap.

"Do you blame her? The world has just ended and she's all alone, and now a pair of strangers have moved into a house that probably belonged to one of her friends or family."

"I don't blame her at all. We should reach out to her. See if we can do anything to help her out."

"I agree. But I suggest in future we avoid following her anywhere. How -"

"What's that?" She interrupts him, because she can hear a sound outside.

"It sounded like it was out front. Near where we left the rover?"

"I'm going to have a look. Calmly, with a rifle, before you accuse me of being impulsive again."

She doesn't wait for his response, simply heads for the door and grabs a gun on her way out of the house. She arrives just in time to see a small dark-haired girl – presumably the same one Bellamy has just met under such unconventional circumstances - bolt back into the trees behind where they have parked the rover. She meant to finish unpacking this morning, but with everything that's happened she never got round to it. Why, then, is the back door hanging open?

On closer investigation, it turns out that they no longer own any crackers. This is unfortunate, given that they still had half a dozen packs last time she checked. She's willing to bet that there's a nightblood child out there who's now half-a-dozen-packs-of-crackers richer.

When she reports back to Bellamy he doesn't bother even trying to hide his laugh.

"She'll keep us on our toes, that's for sure." She giggles at his choice of phrasing, given neither of them can currently entirely walk.

"I'm going to finish unpacking before the child from hell takes all our supplies. Read a book or something."

"Could you maybe see if you can catch us something to eat, too?"

"Good point. Don't go anywhere, OK?"

"Yes, doctor." He attempts to look serious, but rather ruins the effect by failing to repress the hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth.

"I'll be just outside. Shout if you want anything."

Unpacking the rover is not a particularly enjoyable experience, what with having to lug boxes around while her hip is still not quite right, but she knows it pales into insignificance compared with what Bellamy had to face at the church yesterday so she forces herself to just get it done. The mindlessness of the task also allows her thoughts a little too much freedom to wander, and unsurprisingly she finds herself dwelling on 'the last conversation I had with Gina' and 'I can't lose you'. She thinks that, probably, those few words are the final hint she needed that what is going on between them is not exactly platonic, which is just as well, really, because it stopped being platonic for her quite a long time ago. She's pleased at the evidence that he might be on the same page but it leaves her facing the question of whether she's feeling brave enough to do anything about it - and that's a frightening question, because people she loves seem to die quite a lot.

She lifts a heavy crate of books and reminds herself firmly that he's proven quite good at not dying, so far.

She takes the books inside, but does no more, because frankly, if Bellamy wants books, he can unpack them himself. She then moves on to her next task, namely checking the snares she set earlier, and is pleased to find that today there are three rabbits for their supper. If the valley continues to be this good to them they will never go hungry. She sets about cooking, and when the first one is ready she places it towards the edge of the village, still in view of the place where she sits to tend the fire. She has a plan.

Sure enough, after about ten minutes the girl tentatively emerges from the trees and edges towards the food.

"Ai laik Klark kom Skaikru." She introduces herself, to the girl's visible shock, and then continues in stilted Trig. "Take the food. It's a gift."

The girl looks at her in suspicious silence, and she realises that this may take some time.

"Please. Eat."

"Why are you giving me food?" She asks eventually and not a little incredulously. "I took your food and hurt your man."

"He's not my man." She rushes to correct the girl, although really correct labelling of her relationship with Bellamy should probably not be her priority right now. It's not like there's anyone around to judge her, or to report back to him about the traitorous rising colour in her cheeks.

The child fires off a rapid response in Trig that she does not entirely understand, but between context and the rather self-explanatory expression on her face she gathers that it means something along the lines of well who the hell else's man is he?

She decides it's probably time to move the conversation back to the point at hand. Defining the undefinable will have to wait.

"The food is yours. Blood must not have blood."

"The Heda decided that once." The child says thoughtfully, instead of taking the rabbit, and continues more slowly as if trying to encourage Clarke to keep up. "I remember my nomon thought that was good and maybe I wouldn't have to hide any more, because Lexa thought blood must not have blood. She thought Lexa was a great Heda."

"She was."

"You knew her?" The child's expression indicates that this is exciting news, that Lexa's legacy has spread far and wide amongst her people.

"I loved her. But then she died." She informs her simply, in words that are as much as either her heart or her linguistic abilities can manage.

"And that is why you don't know whether your man is your man?" This child is a little too clever, she thinks. Bellamy was right.

"Part of it, yes."

"You're a natblida?"

"Yes."

"And you say blood must not have blood?"

"Yes."

At that, the child reaches for the rabbit, and Clarke can see that this is the moment that the parentless girl decides to trust her, at least a little.

"Ai laik Madi kom Louwoda Kliron Kru."

…...

Bellamy can't quite believe it when Clarke returns with two generous portions of rabbit and the news that their new neighbour is called Madi. It never ceases to amaze him, this ability she has to come up with a way to conquer any challenge that is set before her.

They spend most of the rest of the day watching variations on a theme of Pride and Prejudice, but he knows that if Clarke asks him which he prefers he will be unable to give a coherent response. He finds himself rather distracted all the while by threading his fingers through her hair and gazing at the way her lips quirk up at the corners when she's enjoying the film. Most distracting of all, without doubt, is the fact that he's seriously contemplating just kissing her and seeing what happens.

He seems to have found himself contemplating that rather often recently.

Surely, he thinks, he can't be entirely misreading all this enthusiasm for physical contact. And that thing she said earlier, about needing him – how else is he supposed to interpret that?

He mustn't rush her, though, he resolves as he lies in bed that night, her head cradled on his chest. He'll wait for as long as she needs him to. He knows that she's lost too many people to take love lightly.

…...

Clarke is disappointed to find Bellamy long gone when she wakes up, his side of the bed cold and a cheerless note informing her that he'll be doing some odd jobs around the village if she needs him. She decides, therefore, to make good use of her time in attempting to teach herself how to maintain a vegetable plot. There are some root vegetables that she recognises from Earth Skills as potatoes, a vast number of cabbages, and several large white things that she believes to be cauliflowers, but beyond that she is utterly unable to identify what the previous occupants of their home were eating. She passes an enjoyable couple of hours in pulling up some things she's fairly sure are weeds and watering her precious crops, and by the time she hears heavy footsteps behind her she's feeling rather proud of herself.

"Look what I've been up to." She gestures to her work with disproportionate pride.

"Not bad. I've had a pretty productive morning too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. There's something I need to show you. Come on." He takes her hand, and pulls her to her feet, and starts leading her away from her cauliflowers and weeding.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

They turn a corner, and there, in the shadow of an outhouse, is a large object constructed from an odd mixture of wood and wire and scrap metal. He's peering somewhat nervously at her, and asking her whether she likes it, and she really cannot for the life of her work out what's going on.

Then she hears a squawk, and suddenly everything falls into place.

"It's brilliant." She tells him, because it is. "Thank you."

"I know I promised you a chicken coop, but I'm afraid I couldn't find any chickens – I think maybe they're not good with radiation – so I caught some ducks. I seem to remember from Earth Skills that ducks lay eggs, but if not then I guess we can just eat the ducks. I thought we might call them all Horace, actually. But, yes, sorry – no chickens." He seems to realise he is rambling and bites his lip slightly apprehensively instead.

"Thank you. It's perfect." Somehow she can't help but feel that those words are not entirely adequate, that they don't quite do justice to everything she's feeling as she looks at the chicken coop she worried they might never share, in the home where they are pursuing happiness together. It occurs to her rather abruptly that there is really only one satisfactory way to show him just how much this moment means to her.

She reaches up and kisses him full on the lips.

For a heartbeat she feels a rising tide of fear, because there is no going back from this kiss, no misunderstanding it. This is no peck on the cheek to be explained away as care or concern or companionship. But her worry does not last long, because Bellamy is right there with her every step of the way, just as he always is whenever she is afraid, his lips warm and entirely welcoming against her own.

She has dreamed about this kiss for longer than she cares to admit, and she always presumed that a first kiss with this man would be tender and slow, would hold something of the way that he says goodnight by touching his lips so softly to her forehead. This is not like that. It is utterly unlike that, she notes, as he nips at her lower lip and she grabs fistfuls of his hair and he lets out what can only be described as a moan. The ferocity of it all takes her by surprise, but she's certainly not complaining when his hands find their way to her hips and he pulls her against him with an eagerness that borders on desperation. In fact, she thinks, as she relieves him of his jacket, it is better this way.

Then her shirt gives way to his hands and she stops thinking altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	30. Chapter thirty

Bellamy gazes up at the ceiling, his arm curled around Clarke's back, her head on his shoulder, and reflects on the realisation that, it turns out, sex with her is even better than he expected it to be. It wasn't perfect, of course, between her sore hip and the stitches in his leg making things a bit inconvenient, and the bit where she realised they should probably take it inside or risk scaring Madi off for ever, and the fact that it was their first try – or strictly speaking, first couple of tries - and they weren't quite sure what each other liked. No, not perfect at all. Better than that.

He wonders if, perhaps, he ought to feel a little bit embarrassed about quite how often he found himself telling her that she was beautiful. Any more, he admits to himself, and it would certainly have become a little excessive. But she is beautiful, and he's been waiting a long time to tell her that, so he can't bring himself to regret it. He can't bring himself to regret anything about this wonderful afternoon.

"Is this going to get weird?" She asks breaking the silence, and he feels a stab of disappointment that, it seems, she is not quite so thoroughly convinced as he that this step in their relationship is a brilliant idea. He has to admit that things did escalate rather quickly, but he got the impression she had been waiting for this almost as long as he had.

"I hope not." He forces himself to keep his tone light. If she could summon the courage to initiate that stunning kiss that landed them here, he can surely say what needs to be said now. "I enjoyed it. Be a shame if it didn't happen again."

"Yeah." She agrees softly into his collarbone and he relaxes at once.

"If I'd known it would turn out like this I'd have built you a duck coop ages ago." His buoyant mood makes the words seem a good idea at the time, but she tenses up immediately and he realises his mistake.

"Be serious, Bellamy." She snaps, sounding more than a little afraid.

"I was being serious, Clarke." He takes a deep breath and wonders quite how to go about continuing. "The relationship we already had, that friendship, is incredibly important to me, and of course, I wouldn't want you to feel uncomfortable. But, you must have noticed that - for me – there's... more than only friendship going on here."

"It's like that for me too." She agrees quietly.

He lets out the breath he was holding in a sigh of contentment. "You have no idea how long I've waited to hear you say that."

"We've known each other less than a year."

"Sometimes I think I've been waiting my whole life for you."

He expects her to call him out on that, to tell him he's being pathetic or sappy, that one afternoon of great spontaneous sex does not permit him to speak as if they are soulmates or something, but she surprises him by sharing a heartfelt truth of her own instead.

"Thank you for reminding me what joy is."

…...

Clarke doesn't really want to get up and get dressed and get on with her day. Apart from anything else, she supposes her shirt must still be somewhere near the duck coop and she's not entirely looking forward to going to retrieve it. No, she'd much rather spend the rest of the day – or even the rest of the year – here with Bellamy feeling all relaxed and ecstatic. Because, really, ecstatic is the only word that does justice to quite how happy she is feeling, this beautiful combination of satisfaction and the realisation that, actually, Bellamy wants this kind of relationship between them every bit as much as she does.

She thinks probably late afternoon in the midst of an apocalypse doesn't get much better than this.

"We should probably make Madi some supper." Bellamy suggests eventually and her heart warms even further at this new evidence of his constant need to look after anyone and everyone.

"Have I ever told you that you're incredible?" Because he is, really, this unbelievably caring man.

"Yes, actually." He tells her with laughter in his voice. "Twice. About an hour ago."

"That's not – I don't -"

"Right after you got bored of telling me that I was amazing, I seem to remember. That was when I -"

"Stop. Stop." She can't decide whether she's more amused or embarrassed. "We need some ground rules if this is going to work. Ground rule one – compliments paid during sex may not be repeated afterwards."

"Oh. Does that mean I'm not allowed to tell you you're beautiful right now?"

She wasn't expecting that and finds herself somewhat flustered, but she thinks she could probably get used to it. "We might be able to make an exception for that. Come on. Supper."

"Maybe also clothes." He suggests with a quirked eyebrow as she starts to sit up. It seems he's not very fond of that idea, for all that he was the one who first suggested supper, and he makes a show of trying to hold on to her and prevent her from leaving the bed.

"You're going to have to let go of me eventually. Otherwise a defenceless child will go hungry, and I know you wouldn't want that."

"Defenceless? Defenceless? Have you seen what she did to me?" He gestures to his leg and fails to catch the sock she throws in his general direction.

"Oh, please. Based on recent events there can't be that much wrong with you." She tells him as she begins to dress herself.

"Clarke." His tone is suddenly serious and she pauses, one leg in her shorts and one in mid air. "I'm really pleased we did this. In case you hadn't already worked that out."

"Me too." She tells him with an easy smile as she finishes dealing with her shorts. "We should sleep together more often."

They get on with being almost practical after that, waking a fire outside and cooking some of the vegetables that Clarke was working on earlier in an uninspiring but perfectly edible stew with some leftover rabbit. Their progress with this task is hampered only slightly by the way that they find themselves absolutely incapable of going more than two minutes without sharing a kiss. Eventually, in spite of these urgent interruptions, they end up with a pot of stew and portion it into three bowls.

"Do you think Madi will come over to us or should we put her portion a bit further away?" Bellamy asks her thoughtfully as he distributes spoons between the bowls.

"Let's wait and see. If she hasn't shown up in a few minutes we can move it."

They don't have to wait long. Barely have they sat down next to the fire when Madi edges cautiously out from the trees and makes her way slowly towards them. Clarke calls out in welcome, explaining in the girl's own language that there is food for her and she is welcome to join them or to take it and leave if she prefers.

Madi ignores her in favour of approaching Bellamy.

"I'm sorry." She says simply in accented English.

He looks so moved that she wonders if maybe he might be about to cry or something, but what actually happens surprises her even more.

"Ai laik Belomi kom Skaikru."

…...

Emori wishes she could predict the mood at the supper table more accurately. Then, at least, she could feign illness on evenings like this, when Monty is determined to mope and see the worst in everything, and Raven is prickly and sarcastic, and she has to admit that, actually, the man she loves seems to be out to make everyone's lives a misery.

"This stuff is revolting." Raven tells them cheerlessly, as if they haven't already noticed, as she stirs her algae.

"Five years of this. I can hardly control my excitement." John contributes unhelpfully.

"Will you two stop it!" Harper snaps, not unexpectedly. "You've been like this for days and it's not fair. Monty works hard to feed you. Be grateful for a change!"

"Oh, I'm enormously grateful." John says, not sounding at all grateful, and she sort of wants to hit him for all that she thinks he's wonderful. "But I'd be even more grateful if we'd brought some venison."

"It's better than being dead." Monty contributes quietly and not at all happily. "And two of my friends died to get you here, so if you could just shut up, that would be great."

"They're not dead." Emori states mildly, because she's fairly convinced this is true.

"Yes. They are. Do you remember the end of the world? Does anyone still remember that?" He asks, voice growing in volume. "Or are you too preoccupied with complaining about my cooking?"

"It's not your cooking, Monty. It's the algae. Don't take it personally." John's voice doesn't sound anywhere near as conciliatory as his words would imply.

"I'm still sure they're not dead." She insists. "They're survivors, those two. And they'd do anything to keep each other alive. I wonder what it's like down there?"

"The fires have died down." Echo contributes, apparently something of an expert on the state of the planet from her late night observations.

"The radiation levels are still sky high." Raven points out.

"They'll find a way." John says, and she is pleasantly surprised to find him agreeing with her after all. "They always do."

…...

Bellamy's grasp of Trig unfortunately doesn't extend very far beyond that one phrase, so for the rest of supper he is largely in the dark as to what is going on. Periodically Clarke turns to him with such useful information as Madi prefers fish to rabbit or it seems they were bear traps, but for the most part he finds himself at leisure to sit back and watch the interaction between them. And it's sweet, really it is, the way that this small girl is bringing out a slightly more nurturing and sensitive side of Clarke, but all the same he can't help feeling a little left out. Evidently he will have to practise his Trig, or help Madi to work on her English, or perhaps both.

Madi eats quickly, as if she hasn't seen a hot meal in about a month, which is hardly surprising given that this is presumably exactly what has happened to her. Clarke appears to be attempting to invite her to stay and chat but without success. The girl thanks them very thoroughly – adding a thank you in English to him – but darts back into the trees as if she can't put distance between herself and these strangers quickly enough.

"Well. That could have gone much worse." Clarke decides brightly.

"I'd probably agree with you if I had a clue what was going on."

"I asked her some questions about her life, mostly she didn't answer. But she did accept the food and she didn't run away until after she'd eaten. I'm still no closer to working out where on Earth she's actually living."

"We'll get there." He tells her, more to reassure her than because he's convinced it's true. "You're really good with her, you know. It's odd watching you be so patient." He concludes with a teasing grin.

"I think there was a compliment in there somewhere."

"I think so too. Come on, we should tidy up."

"Then a film?"

"Definitely a film."

It turns out movie night is even better now that he no longer has to pretend that he's being merely friendly as he pulls her into his arms. It is enhanced still further by her newfound fascination with kissing that certain spot where his neck meets his jaw and the completely uninhibited way in which she drapes herself over his lap as if claiming it for her own. All in all, he thinks, quiet evenings in the midst of a nuclear apocalypse probably don't get much better than this.

And when the film ends long before the evening does, and she suggests that, perhaps, instead of watching something else they should go to bed early – well, he's certainly not inclined to argue with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	31. Chapter thirty one

Raven's not going to apologise for her less-than-stellar company at dinner the previous evening, or at least not in actual words, because that sounds a bit too much like admitting she was wrong, which is simply not an option. But, all the same, she has to acknowledge that perhaps if even Murphy is showing slightly better manners than her she might not have been entirely right. And as it happens Monty is pretty important to her, as is every one of this odd assortment of people she has ended up living with for the foreseeable future. So it is that, as she takes her seat at the breakfast table the following morning and receives her dose of green goop, she finds herself resolving to do better.

"Thanks." She says, as Monty hands her the bowl. He very nearly drops it in shock.

"You're welcome." He responds with an air of evident confusion as Echo, sitting opposite her, makes no attempt to hide her surprise.

"What has everyone got planned for the day?" She continues with some determination.

"We're salvaging what we can from the old infirmary." Harper informs her cheerfully, apparently having decided not to hold a grudge from the previous day. It is good, she thinks, that she is stuck in space for five years with at least one person who is generally forgiving.

"I suppose you can find something for me to fix." Murphy contributes.

"I'll be working on the algae farm." Monty sounds somewhat nervous about the reception this obvious statement might receive, she thinks.

"Of course. I know that takes up a lot of your time, but I thought it would be great if we could all find time to do something together." She tries for a nonchalant shrug and no one calls her out on the obvious tension in her shoulders as she does so. "Perhaps we could play a game together after our evening algae."

"Sounds good." Emori offers with a warm smile, and she finds her heart lifting at this show of friendship.

"I'm in." Murphy decides, as if anyone could imagine him choosing differently when Emori has agreed to the scheme.

"Me too." Echo adds.

Harper looks at Monty, as if wondering if he might answer for the both of them.

"That's a good idea." He says mildly, as only Monty can do. "It'd be great to spend some time together."

…...

Bellamy is beginning to become concerned that his shooting might have got rusty during a month under the ground and a few days of settling into their new home, so the moment he has an afternoon free he takes a couple of guns out into the woods and chooses a tree as a target.

It turns out he needn't have worried. He's not lost his touch in the slightest. In fact, he finds himself thinking, it might have been a good idea to drag Clarke along. Partly because, in a dangerous world, a little shooting practice is always a useful thing, but largely because he thinks it might have done his ego a bit of good to have her watch him do something he's rather awesome at. Never mind. He can invite her next time. And she can do that thing she does where she looks at him with what can only be described as adoration, and he can make her laugh, and maybe, if he's lucky, they can have sex up against a tree. They've not tried that yet, but he hopes it's on the cards soon. There are quite a lot of things they still haven't tried because, for all the recent developments between them, their relationship is not founded on compatibility in the bedroom. No, it's built on much stronger foundations than that, like care and respect and the love he still can't bring himself to mention.

That said, they are pretty damn compatible in the bedroom, it turns out.

He forces himself to stop daydreaming about Clarke and get on with his activity for the afternoon. He fires off round after round, utterly absorbed in his task, so it takes him longer than it should to notice that he has company. Madi is peering around a tree trunk with undisguised curiosity in her gaze.

"Hi, Madi." He greets her cheerfully, and when she doesn't immediately run off he takes that for the minor miracle it is. Clarke may have made some progress with the girl, but between the trap which served as their introduction and the fact that his Trig is basically nonexistent he can't help but feel that he's started out at a disadvantage.

Of course, the child does not respond. She just goes on staring. He throws her what he hopes is a reassuring smile and shoots for a few more minutes.

When he next turns round, she is no longer behind a tree, but rather is in the open, just a couple of metres in front of him, with a thoughtful expression.

"You OK?" He asks, in English, and wonders why he's bothering at all.

To his surprise, she does respond to that. Not in words – she clearly has enough sense to realise that would be beyond pointless – but in gestures. She points at herself, and at his rifle, and he finds himself slightly stunned. She seems to take this for confusion, and mimes shooting actions with her hands for good measure.

"You want to try?" He asks her slowly, and there is no missing that her response is in the affirmative.

The moment he sees the enthusiasm on her face at the idea he knows he is lost. Of course, Clarke would be horrified if she found out he was even considering giving a gun to a small child who has already injured him once, but he figures he's got to get to know her somehow. He's not going to teach her how to use his rifle, of course – the recoil from that would probably flatten her – but he's got a small handgun with him as well, and if he's vigilant, well, she shouldn't be able to do too much damage.

Slowly, carefully, he indicates the gun he intends to show her how to use and then walks closer to the target, beckoning her to follow. He rather wonders how to go about teaching a six-year-old who doesn't share his language how to do anything at all, let alone something complicated and potentially perilous, and comes to the conclusion that a lot of miming will have to be involved. He shows her what to do first, slowly modelling the process of aiming and keeping his breathing steady, as well as placing his feet deliberately into a firm stance. All the while, she gazes at him with rapt attention, clearly fascinated by this spontaneous lesson.

Finally, he can put it off no longer. He hands her the gun and stands just a little behind her and to the side – far enough away not to make her feel uncomfortable, but close enough to prevent anything foolish or dangerous she might get it into her head to do.

Of course, she does nothing foolish and nothing dangerous. She treats this opportunity as if it is something precious, almost sacred, following his actions with great deliberation, and doing a respectable job of shooting five bullets into more or less the middle of the tree.

Then she runs out of bullets and he genuinely fears she might cry.

"No more." He tells her apologetically, and she seems to understand that even if she doesn't like it. "We can do this again another time." He suggests, and he likes to think she brightens a little as if, maybe, she got the gist of that too.

He's not sure what he's supposed to do now, what the next step is on the road to winning this child's trust, but it seems she makes the decision on his behalf. Before he has time to process quite what's happening, she has taken his hand and started dragging him swiftly away from the target tree and in the direction of the river. He could break away from her grasp very easily, it occurs to him, if he wanted to, but he decides that it's probably best to let her show him whatever it is she's so excited about.

She stops when they arrive at the river, and scrabbles about in some undergrowth for a while before emerging with two rudimentary spears, one of which she places in his hands. She rattles off a string of syllables he has no hope of understanding, takes up a position crouched on a rock that overlooks the river, and proceeds to wait.

Well, then. It looks like he is getting a spear-fishing lesson.

…...

Clarke has had a productive afternoon, collecting medicinal plants and caring for her ducks, but it feels unnatural to spend quite so many hours in a row without Bellamy by her side now that they are a couple rather than a pretending-to-be-platonic pair. She can't help but think that, next time, it might be a good idea to join him in his shooting practice rather than stay at home. It could be quite fun - she still remembers the time they found those guns together all those months ago when they first arrived on the ground with rather a lot of fondness and only the smallest hint of a blush. What, she cannot help asking herself, might happen now that they no longer have to pretend to be disinterested in each other? And, besides which, she thinks it would put her mind at ease to be there with him. She's not unaccustomed to worrying about him, after all the dangers they have been through together, but she doesn't much like it all the same.

So it is that, when he emerges from the trees soaked to the skin and with a small gash bleeding sluggishly over his left eye, her heart skips a beat – but only one. It is, she observes right away, a relatively minor injury. He has, evidently, recently fallen into some body of water, and in addition to the guns he took out shooting this morning he is also carrying four large fish. To her further confusion, a slightly damp Madi is pottering merrily along behind him.

"It's fine." He tells her cheerfully by way of greeting in spite of his appearance suggesting otherwise. "Madi didn't mean for me to get hurt this time. It was an accident."

She offers him a perfunctory kiss on his less blood-smeared cheek and cocks an eyebrow in a way that, she hopes, conveys that this is not an adequate explanation.

"She was teaching me how to fish. You can probably guess that I fell in." That does explain his soaking, she acknowledges, but it still leaves her with more questions than answers. When, exactly, did their relationship with Madi progress as far as fishing lessons?

She grapples with the language barrier for a few moments in attempting to convey to Madi that it would be nice if, one of these days, Bellamy could bump into her in the forest without injuring himself. Clearly she meets with some success as the girl responds with an impish smile and the suggestion that you ought to be grateful that I fished him out. She laughs at that, but finds herself distinctly less amused as Madi continues to prattle on with some comment about a shooting lesson that she can hardly make head nor tail of.

"Why is Madi talking about shooting?" She asks Bellamy, becoming somewhat alarmed.

"Oh. I was hoping I'd get to tell you that first. I'm teaching her how to shoot."

"You're teaching a small child that we just met under disastrous circumstances how to shoot." She repeats back to him, wondering whether perhaps this is either a joke or a misunderstanding.

"Yes." Hmm. No such luck.

"Are you out of your mind?" She finds that her voice is no longer entirely under her control, and seems to be rather higher pitched than normal. "That's – it's stupid. It's absolutely stupid. What if she shoots you by accident? What if she shoots you on purpose?"

"She won't. She's not a bad shot, actually. And if she shot me on purpose she wouldn't get any more lessons, so she won't do that."

"I – you – how are you so calm about this?" Her voice is still rather more aggressive than normal, she notes.

"I went through most of the thoughts you're thinking now before I gave her the gun. And it made her really happy." He points out, gesturing to where Madi stands behind him still grinning from ear to ear despite their tense conversation, and she feels the fight start to go out of her.

"I just don't want you to get hurt. Or her to get hurt, either."

"We won't. I promise." He's still standing at arm's length, evidently understanding that she's not really too keen for a lot of physical contact while he's soaked and bleeding, but he leans in to kiss her softly all the same. "Do you think that I could put some dry clothes on and you could stitch my head up now?"

"You don't need stitches for that, Bellamy." She laughs gently up at him. "Come inside and I'll clean it. And then I suppose we should cook some fish."

…...

By the time Bellamy reemerges from the house, dressed in dry clothes and forehead no longer bleeding, Clarke and Madi have made a start on cooking the fish over a small fire. He briefly registers his own surprise at the ongoing presence of the young girl who is attempting to indicate to Clarke that the fish are, in fact, burning slightly.

"You see, Clarke? This is why you shouldn't cook." He greets her with a kiss that, perhaps, lingers a little too long to be socially acceptable, but it's not as if they have an extensive audience. When he pulls away, he is amused to see that she looks a bit too dazed to formulate a response to his teasing.

The silence that follows is broken by Madi babbling some words he doesn't understand, but that seem to involve a lot of repetition of the word man and a great deal of giggling. The plot thickens further as a definite blush rises in Clarke's cheeks.

"What's she saying?" He asks, hoping that she will step up and interpret.

"Nothing." She answers a little too quickly. "Nothing at all. Supper's nearly ready."

The conversation over their evening meal is a little less stilted than their previous attempts. Clarke interprets backwards and forwards between them, asking after their impromptu afternoon lessons and suggesting other skills they might be able to share with each other in the future. There is also, he notes, rather a lot more smiling and laughing going on than has happened before, and these are things he can readily understand and participate in without translation. As their plates are nearly empty he finds himself airing an idea to Clarke.

"Do you think we should invite her to stay and watch a movie after supper?"

"Do you think that would work? Would she understand it?" She asks in response, ever the more pragmatic – or perhaps cynical – of the two of them.

"We could watch the Lion King again. I seem to remember that wasn't complicated."

"I'd rather marry an aardvark." She tells him with a grin, and he can't help a sudden burst of laughter as he catches her reference.

It seems, however, that despite her cynicism she is warming to this child just as quickly as he is, as she immediately addresses Madi with what can only be an attempt to explain the idea. It appears that she is not finding it easy to do so, as she draws a rectangle in midair and then repeats the same couple of phrases several times, but eventually the girl seems to decide that she has nothing much to lose by this mysterious offer and gives a decisive nod of her head.

They are clearly none of them quite comfortable with settling down in front of the television together, Madi on high alert for the merest whisper of danger, and he forces himself to make do with a casual arm around Clarke's shoulders so as not to make the girl feel like she is intruding on anything. All the same, he thinks, this is quite possibly the happiest he has ever been, as he breathes in time with the woman he loves and basks in the warmth of their newfound closeness with this parentless child. It certainly beats a decade and a half of worrying over his sister, every second of every minute of every day, and it's a huge improvement on the months of constantly fearing for Clarke's safety. He finds, then, that he is rather puzzled by the sudden onset of tears clouding his vision as the film starts to play in front of them. He's happy, he reminds himself firmly, for all that he's currently watching the favourite film of the sister from whom he is separated, under the eagle-eyed gaze of another dark-haired young girl who needs his protection.

"What's wrong?" Clarke whispers to him, and he wonders how it is that she knows anything is wrong at all. She must know him even better than he thought, he realises, to have felt the tension in his chest without averting her eyes from the screen.

"It's O." He tells her simply and she reaches out to squeeze his hand in response. He pauses to wonder only a little at how naturally it comes to him to open up to her like this, now, and at how instinctively he knows she will understand. "Her favourite film, Madi reminding me of her."

"I can see that." She murmurs in response. "We should go to Polis soon. Maybe stop by Arkadia to look for those flares on the way so we can show them on the Ring that we're doing OK."

"Let's do that." He agrees and allows himself to bury his face in her hair for just a second, just until he has blinked away the tears.

When he resurfaces, he is grateful to note that Madi has become utterly engrossed in the film and is displaying no interest whatsoever in their behaviour. The language barrier is clearly presenting no problem to her in this context – apparently falling lions make sense even without words. Clarke seems to tolerate the predictability of the plot rather more cheerfully this time, and he finds himself hoping that Madi will join them again. It is worth being a little uncomfortable, he thinks, a little out of his element, if it means that they can make her day.

He expresses as much to Clarke that night as they lie in bed, side by side on their backs, hands clasped between them. She is quick to agree that it is good to bring some happiness into her life after her bereavement and the collapse of everything she has ever known, but being Clarke she is rather more preoccupied with the practicalities. They still have no idea where she is sleeping, since she refused their offer of a spare bedroom for the night, and they have certainly had no luck with convincing her to try some clean clothes. All the same, they resolve to persevere with her in their different but complimentary ways. The smiles and giggles they have shared today suggest that it will be well worth their while to do so.

"She's a sweet kid." Clarke concludes affectionately. "When she's not getting you into trouble."

"Do you ever think of having children of your own, one day?" He asks her tentatively, because he cannot quite help himself, even though he's not sure if it's wise to be asking this when she's yet to truly perfect the skill of speaking from the heart.

"Yes." She says, and he waits for the rest of her sentence, for when the world stops ending or a long way in the future or just not with you, but there are none of those words. As she rolls towards him and buries her face in his neck, there is only yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	32. Chapter thirty two

Bellamy is convinced that the lessons of that afternoon mark the turning point in their relationship with Madi. As the days turn to weeks he continues to teach her how to shoot, for all that he knows Clarke will never be entirely convinced by the idea, and he also teaches her how to do a perfect burpee and make an edible meal from a ration pack. Clarke passes on her knowledge of charcoal and paper, and which plants are good to eat, and which are to be avoided at all costs. In return, Madi shows them both how to fish – although it must be said, it comes naturally to neither of them – and which spots are best for hunting, best for laying snares.

One day, as he and Madi stand side by side making a fair attempt at gutting the day's catch, he starts to tell her the story of Aeneas. He's not sure why, really, because her English is still limited to say the least, but it somehow feels like the right thing to do. And, apparently, she agrees, because when he runs out of words the disappointed look on her face makes it quite clear that he is required to weave another tale. And so he does. He starts with the old stories, the ones his mother told, of gods and men, monsters and heroes. But it's not long until he moves on to the juvenile delinquents who built a new life, the fearsome warrior who made peace a priority, the girl who rules beneath the floor.

One day, to his surprise, she peeks through the cracks in the language barrier to tell him a story of her own. Of another girl who grew up in hiding, for rather different reasons. Not because she was unwanted by her people, but because the colour of her blood made her wanted a little too much. That's the moment when he realises his mistake in asking Clarke that question some weeks ago. They already have a child of their own, and her name is Madi.

…...

Clarke has been putting off their expedition to Arkadia and Polis, not because she does not want to go, but because she feels so far from comfortable about leaving Madi. She knows, though, that Bellamy is itching to get on with it, to put his mind at rest, however determinedly he is trying to be reasonable and not make a fuss about it. So it is that they have been in the valley for a couple of months by the time she eventually broaches the subject.

"Madi." She approaches the girl as she sits in the dust tying twine for snares. "We need to talk about something."

The girl looks up in some alarm at the tone of her voice, and she takes that for an invitation to continue.

"Bellamy and I, we need to go away for a little while. To Polis, to see how his sister is."

"But his sister is under the ground." She looks up at her with confusion clearly etched on her face.

"Yes. We're not going to see her, really, we're going to check she's still safe in the bunker." Clarke thinks this probably makes no more sense to Madi than it made to her three months ago.

"Why?"

"Because it's important to him. He loves her."

"And you love him." She does not disagree. Perhaps, she thinks, it might be time to make sure he knows that, soon.

"So we're going to Polis. You should be fine, OK, we'll only be gone for a couple of days. And we'll leave you plenty of food."

There is a pause, in which the child stares down at her hands with her brows knotted in a frown. At last, she takes a deep breath and asks a tentative question. "Can – can I come with you?"

"I suppose so." She was not expecting this turn of events and finds herself sounding less than encouraging. "Do you want to? It won't be very exciting."

"I have to." She chokes out, beginning to weep like the grieving child she is but does not often allow them to see. "I already lost my nomon, I have to stay with you."

"Sure, Madi. Of course." She speaks soothingly, and wonders about reaching out a hand to the girl's shoulder. "You can always stay with us."

At that, the usually completely undemonstrative child reaches up to wrap her arms around her waist.

…...

The journey to Polis is the work of barely a morning by rover. As he drives Bellamy finds himself thanking the heavens once again for Clarke's success in digging it out – and getting herself home safely after doing so. He thinks the mixed emotions of that day will stay with him for a very long time. As it is, today is a rather more cheerful day – Madi insisted on sitting in the back so that she could hang out of the back window and watch the world go by, and she is shrieking with excitement as she does so. Clarke, on the other hand, is wincing with nervousness at the potential risk of the child falling from the moving vehicle, but periodically he reaches out a hand to give her leg a reassuring squeeze.

He's nervous too, at the thought of what they might find on their arrival, but it is not affecting him as much as he once feared. He knows, now, that no matter what he finds here, even if his worst nightmares come true and his sister is dead as those villagers in the church were gruesomely dead, Clarke will be by his side and they will face it together.

It seems increasingly likely that Madi will also be right behind them, ready to remind him to laugh again.

As the city begins to rise up on the horizon they are faced with a shock – because the city does not rise up, or at least, it does not rise up nearly as tall as it once did. It is immediately apparent that the tower has sustained substantial damage, and in his mind he is already calculating what this means for the state of the bunker. As they draw closer, he realises that the city has been reduced to rubble, no trace of the proud buildings that once characterised the intimidating capital city where he left Clarke – or she decided she was to be left – all those months ago.

"She'll be OK, Bellamy. The bunker's under the ground, there's no reason why all this damage on the surface should affect it." Clarke seems to be attempting to convince herself as much as him as she breaks the horrified silence that has fallen over them at the sight of the ruins.

"Yeah. Absolutely. No point panicking until we can see what we're dealing with, anyway."

"Very sensible." She agrees, voice carefully controlled, and he makes no attempt to respond. He doesn't think he has it in him to pretend that his heart is not in his mouth just now.

…...

They leave the rover on the outskirts of the former city where the rubble spills over the roads and renders them beyond impassible. Clarke has made it round to Bellamy's door and taken his hand in her own almost before he has had time to cut the engine, because she knows that, right now, he is very much in need of something to hold on to. This is going to be a difficult day, this much is obvious, but they have faced worse days before and survived, together.

"Thanks." He sends her a surprisingly convincing smile. "I feel so lucky that you're here for this."

"Imagine how I felt when I woke up in that bunker and you were right there." He seems to decide that such a moment of sentimentality deserves a reward and presses a brief, firm kiss to her lips.

"Come on." He visibly squares his shoulders. "Let's see how it looks."

It doesn't look like much, it turns out. They locate the place where the bunker must be, but the layer of rubble above it is several feet thick, and so they stand there, mute, while she continues to cling on to his fingers – partly to show him that she is there for him, and partly to ensure he doesn't do anything stupid, like try to dig his sister out with his bare hands.

"Are you OK?" She asks when he has been silent a little too long.

"Yeah." He breathes out a long sigh as he fixes his gaze on the mountain of masonry ahead of him. "Nothing's changed, has it? We don't know that she's not dead, but we also don't know that she is. I'll just have to carry on not knowing. And that's OK, I'm getting better at not knowing." He pauses for a moment, and she wonders if she is supposed to fill the silence or if he has plans for it. "And I know I've got you, and you mean the world to me, so... There's more good than bad here."

"There is, Bellamy, I promise there is. We'll come back. We'll salvage some equipment from Arkadia, find a way to move all of this."

"Yeah. Of course we will. We always find a way." He offers her a weak grin. "Let's go to Arkadia, find something to move this lot. Find some flares, too, to show the Ring we're OK. We should stop standing here and get on with something that brings hope."

"You're absolutely remarkable." She tells him fiercely. "And you mean the world to me, too." It's less than half of what she feels for him, but she has to start somewhere.

…...

Madi does not make a fuss about moving in. On their return from Arkadia, she simply takes up residence in the spare bedroom, and no more is said on the matter. One day she actually takes the clean clothes that Clarke has taken to leaving out in case she should want them, and with that, the deal is closed.

As they skin rabbits together one autumn afternoon Bellamy takes it upon himself to tell her the story of Unity Day, because they have chosen this upcoming date as a suitable occasion to set off the flares. He is unsurprised by her confusion.

"They kill the ship of Becca Praimheda." She states, attempting to clarify her understanding of the tale in fast-improving English. "Why do we have a party?"

He chuckles at that, because she certainly has a point. "Because it makes us feel close to our friends." He explains. "Next week we will have a party, because it will be a special day for our friends in the sky too."

"I meet them one day?"

"Of course." She seems satisfied with this answer and nods firmly as she returns her attention to the carcass in front of her.

…...

Unity Day rolls around and Clarke finds that a certain sense of festivity comes rather easily to her. Madi is already buzzing with delight at the fact that they have prepared more food than is strictly necessary. She can scarcely imagine what will happen any moment now when Bellamy finally manages to make their music library link up with the speakers and the solar generator. There is something at least a little bit heartwarming, she thinks, about the way this girl is capable of being so joyful after such grief.

She shouldn't be surprised, really, at the song Bellamy has chosen. She ought to have predicted it as long ago as that first breakfast song in the bunker. Or perhaps even as long ago as stop, the air could be toxic and if the air is toxic we're all dead anyway. She finds herself welling up just a little as the familiar lyrics wash over her.

"Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time..."

He carries the speakers outside with a grin on his face and barely sets them down in time to catch her as she throws herself into his arms. It's not exactly a traditional song for a romantic slow dance, she thinks, but as she clings to him as tightly as the clothes between them will allow and sways in a vaguely rhythmic fashion she cannot bring herself to care. She is rather preoccupied with the business of being utterly and completely happy in this perfect moment, now, here, with him.

…...

Echo isn't sure why she still watches the Earth. There are other things she could be doing, these days, as Harper has started occasionally seeking her company in the evenings before retreating to her bed with Monty, and Raven seems to have decided that other people are not a complete waste of space, and in all honestly she's fallen asleep the moment her head has hit the pillow for the last fortnight at least. Perhaps by now it has just become a habit, or her way of contributing something to this odd crew which she is beginning to feel she has always been a part of. Tonight, certainly, she has felt part of something bigger, as they spent the evening sitting around the table after their algae drinking a little too much of Monty's algae moonshine in honour of the Unity Day of the Sky People.

She's wondering if, perhaps, in the spirit of celebration, this might be a night to try going to bed at a slightly more socially acceptable time when she sees it - an odd movement blurring into existence somewhere above their old home which begs her to stay and watch more closely. Before long the flicker resolves itself into three pinpricks of pink light, rushing ever upwards and towards her watchpost.

She's no idiot and has built a career on being observant, so she knows what is going on here. Pinpricks of pink light do not happen by accident. These are flares. And flares can only be sent by people who are alive – so much is obvious.

Harper is going to want to hear about this.

…...

Life doesn't get better than this, Bellamy thinks – or at least not in his experience. To be fair, his experience of life has tended towards the more unpleasant end of the spectrum. All the same, he is convinced that recent weeks have set a benchmark for content that almost anyone would be satisfied with. The woman he loves is sitting on his lap, giggling in an utterly carefree way – something which would have been unthinkable to him only a year ago - at the antics of the rogue child they have accidentally found themselves taking in. It's not the life he had planned for himself on the Ark – in fact, it couldn't look more different - but he's definitely not complaining. Things have without doubt turned out better than he could have dared to hope when he stood in that bunker as the world burned, a terrible plan playing through his head, and prayed that Clarke would get back to him.

Stage Three of that plan has gone well so far. They have set the flares off without a hitch, so by now their friends should have seen them and understand what they meant. They have managed to locate some bits and pieces he reckons he can set up with the rover to shift some of the rubble on top of the bunker. They have, now, five years ahead of them, with nothing to do but grow vegetables and spear fish and move masonry.

And love each other. He hopes they intend to continue to do that. In fact, he resolves, it's about time they started doing that in a rather more open and conventional way.

So it is that he tells her that night, as he lies curled around her in bed, so that she can pretend to be asleep if her head and her heart still aren't on quite the same page.

"I love you." He whispers into the back of her neck.

"What a shocking development. And here I thought that risking your life to stay with me during a nuclear apocalypse was code for let's be friends." He laughs, because he knows he is supposed to, is supposed to reason away his hurt at the fact that she's not ready to say it back. To his surprise, though, she squeezes his hand and continues speaking, albeit so quietly he has to strain to hear her. "I love you, too. And that's quite frightening for me, because the people I love seem to die. I don't think I'm supposed to get a happy ending."

"I'm not sure any of us is supposed to get a happy ending on this ridiculous planet, Clarke. But I'm happy now, here, with you, and that's good enough for me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Just the epilogue to go now... and then the sequel!


	33. Epilogue

By the second set of unity flares, Clarke can no longer hide the swell of her belly - not that she can really understand why she wants to. Bellamy knows full well that she's pregnant, having been rather intimately involved in getting her into this situation, and the only other person who could possibly find out is Madi. She thinks that's it, really, that she doesn't want her foster daughter to think that this new child will make her any less loved. Looking back on the scream and the bear trap, now, she can hardly imagine a time when she did not love Madi as her own. She certainly struggles to recall the days before Bellamy went everywhere with a small enthusiastic shadow.

They decide to tell her together, as they sit around the fire after sending their message to the Ring.

"Madi, we have something to tell you." She begins.

"It's good news." Bellamy rushes to reassure her.

"We're expecting a baby." Clarke comes right out with it, eyes fixed nervously on the flames as she wonders how the girl will respond to this development. "Early in the spring. But I promise this won't get in the way of your shooting lessons. And we'll still go on our trips to Polis together, and do drawing together, and all of those fun things."

She dares to look up, and is rather taken aback at the genuine delight on Madi's face. She is even more surprised by the girl's first question on the subject. "Can they sleep in my room?"

"Your room?" Bellamy queries while she struggles to arrange her thoughts.

"Yes. There are two beds. And I never had a brother or sister and I always wanted one and please can they share my room?" Clarke looks up to try to catch Bellamy's eye, but he is too busy staring in a slightly awestruck way at their remarkable daughter.

"I don't see why not." He concludes, as he always will whenever Madi asks for anything. He is, Clarke muses affectionately, something of a pushover when it comes to parenting.

…...

Echo doesn't watch the Earth so often, these days. She's starting to have a little more faith that it will still be there when she gets back if she goes away for a while to live her life. But she knows that tonight is a night when it is worth watching, and she manages to convince Harper to do the same. It takes a fair amount of effort on her part, a fair amount of I'm a spy, I notice things and what have you got to lose, but in the end her friend shrugs and settles into a seat by the window with her chipped mug of Unity Day moonshine.

Sure enough, as the evening draws on, three pinpricks of pink light appear somewhere over the landmass that was once know as North America, and more recently as home, and rush towards them, closer and ever closer.

"Do you believe me now?" She asks a little peevishly as the dots grow clear enough to be beyond denying.

"I think I always believed you." Harper tells her mildly. "I just didn't want to let myself hope and then have to mourn them all over again."

"I get that. But I don't see who else that could be."

"It's them." Harper tells her firmly.

Next year, Echo decides, they will all watch the three flares rise together. Monty will probably tear up, and Raven will grudgingly admit that Emori was right all along, and that it turns out that there is nothing that Clarke and Bellamy cannot do together. Murphy, she supposes, will say something that is supposed to sound sarcastic, but really succeeds only in sounding joyful.

She is wrong in only one regard. Next year, there will be four flares.

…...

The labour is long but essentially uncomplicated and the child is a healthy boy. They name him Augustus, because it is at least a little unthinkable that the son of Bellamy Blake could be called anything else, but also because they both feel that it is a fitting tribute to a certain day when Lexa's right hand man Gustus was put to death, and when Bellamy started to put together the pieces of love is weakness and I was being weak, and when they both first realised that, in fact, he'd do anything for her. He never expected, then, that doing anything would include deliberately missing a rocket to salvation, but every morning that the sun rises on her golden hair strewn across his pillow reassures him that he made the right choice.

As it happens, the ducks do not lay many eggs, but Clarke keeps them all the same. She has rather a soft spot for her flock of Horaces, for all that they are of very little practical use. She wonders idly, from time to time, if this is a sign that the efficiently rational part of her brain is slipping away from her, but she cannot quite bring herself to mourn its passing. There is little need for brutal logic in this chapter of her life.

They make frequent trips to Polis to clear the rubble and Bellamy surprises himself by adopting a strategic approach, moving only what needs to be moved and breaking not so much as a fingernail in the process. It is slow work, winching rock with the chain he has secured to the rover, but it gets the job done. There is little need to rush in there when they have years to solve the problem.

While her parents work Madi sits with the baby, in the ruins of that once proud city, and tells him stories of all the great heroes, of Aeneas and Achilles, of Octavia Blake and Lexa kom Trikru. From time to time she asks her mother or father to take a turn caring for him, because although it's all well and good to help raise her little brother, he is not entirely her responsibility.

In the years to come their friends will fall from the sky, both the same and changed forever. A woman whom he no longer recognises as his sister will rise from the rubble. And, one day, a new assortment of criminals will land in an unfamiliar forest and run amok.

But they will survive all these things, and even do more than that, and live, as long as they stick together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read and enjoyed this story! Sequel, "More Than That", to follow soon - but in the meantime, you might want to go and check out some of the other stories on my profile. "Child of Our Time" is just coming to a close, too, for example...

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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